


1-UP

by CS_WhiteWolf



Category: Inception (2010), Super Mario Bros
Genre: F/M, Fusion, Inception Reverse Bang, M/M, Post-Inception
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-05-16
Updated: 2011-05-16
Packaged: 2017-10-19 11:51:36
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 34,507
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/200545
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CS_WhiteWolf/pseuds/CS_WhiteWolf
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Fischer's found out about the Inception Job.</p><p>In an elaborate attempt at revenge on the team that infiltrated his mind, Fischer has them kidnapped and forced into doing an extraction job for him. Only, when they enter the dream, it’s to find that Fischer has sent them into a world very much in likeness to that of… the Super Mario Brothers?!</p><p>What starts off as fun and games soon morphs into a terrifying race against time as the team hurry to complete each level in their quest to save their princess and fight the monstrous creature keeping her captive at the end!</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Start

**Author's Note:**

> Written for the i_reversebang challenge on LJ for Paperflower86's Mario FanArt.
> 
>   
> [](http://paperflower86.livejournal.com/95180.html)  
>    
> 
> 
> Many thanks to my beta readers canyousayhot, gelbwax, and sirona-gs for all their help and encouragement <33
> 
>  
> 
> This story can alternatively be read on [[my livejournal](http://cs-whitewolf.livejournal.com/334887.html)]

“There are three levels,” Fisher explained, his eyes roving over each of them in turn. His gaze lingered momentarily on Ariadne who met his stare with a defiance Arthur was more than a little proud of her for. “Your objective is to extract something in the third level.”

“And just what are we meant to be extracting?” Cobb asked, scowling at Fisher.

“Something very dear to you. To all of you.” Fisher said, unaffected by the look Cobb was currently directing at him.

“What kind of bullshit answer is that?” Cobb spat, fingers white against their grip on the armrests of the chair he was currently handcuffed too. Arthur tensed, eyes shifting worriedly between Cobb and Fischer, but Fischer merely smiled at him.

“The only one you’re going to get, Mr Cobb, so I suggest you take what I give you and pay attention to the rest.”

Arthur could see the effort it took for Cobb to bite back his immediate response to _that_ answer. They were all on edge, tense with anticipation and trepidation over what was to come. Arthur couldn’t blame Cobb for his frustration, not when he felt the same turmoil of emotions broiling through his own body.

It had been almost fifteen hours since Arthur had found himself tasered into unconsciousness, drugged, and then hauled from one country to the next before being dumped and cuffed unceremoniously atop a lawn chair in the middle of what appeared to be an abandoned warehouse; the high windows grimy and browned with neglect, filtered in only a smidgen of light, which did nothing to disperse the shadows lurking thick and heavy around them.

When Arthur had managed to rouse himself from his drug induced state enough to take in his surroundings, it was to find Eames, Cobb and Ariadne already cuffed to their own chairs, their eyes heavy and half-glazed. When Yusuf and Saito had been brought in a couple of hours later, Arthur had known that the sick feeling currently curdling his stomach wasn’t going to go away any time soon.

And then Robert Fisher had walked into the room, a half-smile on his face and a PASIV case in one hand.

Arthur supposed that seeing Fischer again shouldn’t have been nearly as surprising as it was. He’d been keeping track of the man himself, if only to ensure that the Inception took and that there would be no unfortunate side effects to the job. And whilst he’d since discovered that Fischer knew far more about dream share technology than Arthur’s initial research had revealed, that Fischer had dissolved his father’s empire a scant few weeks after the job and seemed neither the worse for wear after their efforts, Arthur had found nothing to worry about so far as the man was concerned.

He’d been wrong about him. Again.

Fischer had then proceeded to explain that he had a job for them, a job that would serve almost as a payback to what they did to him. How Fischer had found out about the Inception job was anyone’s guess, and Fischer had just smiled serenely when asked and refused to answer. How he’d managed to track down everyone who preformed the Inception on him, especially after Saito had taken care to ensure no records of their ever having been on the same flight as Fischer existed, was a particular cause for concern, but again Fischer had chosen not to answer that line of inquiry either.

Instead he’d presented them with the job, one that they had no choice but to accept.

“You will also be dosed with a sedative,” Fischer continued, “much in likeness to the one you used on me,” he inclined his head towards Yusuf who shifted uncomfortably in his own chair. “So please, for your own sakes, do not try to get yourself out of this prematurely. By the time you complete the third level and the extraction, the sedative should have worn off enough to allow you to leave.”

“Should have?” Arthur asked, speaking before Cobb could.

Fischer shrugged delicately. “According to the chemist I acquired this particular compound from—” again he seemed almost amused as he directed a look towards Yusuf before turning back to Arthur— “but you never know with sedatives, do you?”

“What assurances do we have that you will let us go once we wake up?” it was Saito who spoke this time. Out of all of them, Arthur found the knowledge that Saito had been abducted as easily as the rest of them, the most surprising. It had been hard enough trying to get the man alone for a few hours for the Cobol job, even ignoring for a moment that it had been a set-up all along.

“None,” Fischer said, “you’ll just have to trust that I am a man of my word.”

“What is your word then, Mr Fischer?” Saito asked, “You have yet to promise us anything.”

“If you get out of this alive,” Fischer began, gesturing to the PASIV he’d set up on a low table before them, “then, you get out of this alive.” He finished by gesturing vaguely around the warehouse.

“May we have your word that this will go no further?” Eames spoke up this time. Fischer inclined his head, encouraging Eames to continue.

"Say we play your game,” Eames started, “we make it out alive, you let us go home, then what? That’s the end of it? Excuse me if I’m wrong, but this seems like an awful lot of trouble to go through just to get us to do a job.”

“It does, doesn’t it?” Fischer agreed. He was still smiling that half-smile of his however and Arthur shifted uncomfortably to see it. “I suppose if I just wanted revenge I could shoot you all right now and be done with it.”

Fischer gestured to two of the five men standing guard behind him and they stepped immediately forward. Every one of them froze, expecting the worst and knowing that there was nothing they could do to stop Fischer from killing them where they sat if he so chose.

Instead, Fischer gestured towards the PASIV and the two men stepped forward, opening the case and reeling out the leads that would connect them all in one dream.

Arthur shared a look of apprehension with Eames who sat to his immediate left and tried not to flinch as his own wrist was roughly grabbed and his shirtsleeve shoved upwards enough to allow the sharp pinch of the needle to sink itself into a vein.

“Thankfully,” Fischer said, “for your sakes I don’t just want revenge. Though you violated my mind with the inception you preformed on me, I find that I cannot quite resent you for the effect it has ultimately had on my life. This presented quite the conundrum you understand, on the one hand I feel that I am a better man for your efforts, but on the other I simply cannot allow something like this to go unpunished.”

Fischer moved towards the only unoccupied lawn-chair and sat himself down on the edge, accepting the last needle and easily inserting it into his arm.

“You’re coming under with us?” Ariadne asked then, surprised. Fischer spared her a softer smile.

“It is the only way to ascertain whether or not you have completed the extraction successfully,” Fischer agreed. “That and someone needs to be the dreamer.”

Ariadne opened her mouth to ask the obvious question but shut it before she could actually speak the words.

Fischer smiled more widely and answered it for her anyway. “Unlike the rest of you, I will _not_ be sedated,” he said. Ariadne frowned at his words but Fischer turned away from her, gesturing towards one of his men.

“Remember, three levels, one extraction, and we’ll never have to mention this Inception business again.”

And then Fischer’s man depressed the button in the middle of the PASIV, releasing the Somnacin.  



	2. Level One

It was the sound of Ariadne’s voice asking if everyone was okay that roused Arthur to full lucidity and brought the world around him into sudden clarity. He found himself sitting on a grassy road; the ground soft and spongy beneath his pressing fingers as he pushed himself carefully to his feet. Straightening his suit, Arthur scanned his immediate surroundings, checking first on his companions and then for anything that might be an immediate threat to them.

The first thing he noticed was that there were only six of them. Fischer was nowhere in sight.

“Has anyone seen Fischer?” Cobb asked, having noticed his absence almost immediately too.

Arthur felt a prickling of unease as everyone replied in the negative. No one had seen Fischer. He shared a quick look with Cobb before turning to take in the world around them. Everything appeared to be fairly tame at first glance. The level they found themselves in resembled an open countryside with an overgrown pathway stretching out before them; a long, rickety fence lined the pathway, its edges and the sprawling fields beyond were choked thick with shrubbery and wild flowers.

The sun above them hung hot and heavy in a nearly-clear blue sky. It looked quintessentially English, he thought, rolling his shoulders beneath a suit jacket that suddenly felt a lot thicker and heavier than it actually was.

Arthur stepped up towards the fence, touching the flaking wood and testing the authenticity. He felt a slight humming beneath his fingertips as he dragged them across the pickets and resistance when he tried to push his hand past them, out towards the sprawling countryside on the other side of it.

‘Only one way to go, then,’ he thought, turning back to his teammates.

He swept his gaze over his companions, watching as they gathered themselves- standing, inspecting- and his eyes searched out Eames, who appeared to be having an animated conversation about the architecture with Ariadne, their hands flying around with exaggerated motions as they competed to make their points.

“It doesn’t look too sinister,” Cobb commented, stepping up to his elbow and drawing his attention; Arthur felt himself frowning at Cobb’s words.

“These things never do to begin with,” he muttered darkly. It didn’t matter that that had been one of his first thoughts too. Cobb shot him a wry smile of agreement before, silently, they started walking in the only direction the road seemed inclined to lead them. The rest of the team fell instinctively into step around them.

Aside from Ariadne and Eames, no one else seemed inclined to speak for the first twenty minutes or so. Arthur thought that maybe they should be discussing tactics, or maybe just asking themselves where Fischer was, or _how_ on earth he’d managed not only to find out about the Inception in the first place (and so quickly at that), but also how he’d managed to find them, kidnap them, and then set them up in such an elaborate revenge attempt.

It was terrifying to think just how easily he, himself, had been snatched up. Especially considering that there were rules. After a job - after _any_ job - they knew to split up and lie low, change identities and skip the country if need be. Successful or not they could never really be sure of the repercussions of a job until the backlash hit. It didn’t always happen. But when it did, it usually hit big, and it was always better to be a million miles away than slap-bang in the crossfire.

Before the Inception job, when it was just Arthur and Cobb and whoever else they pulled in to fill in the blanks, they’d had very few backlashes. Arthur’s meticulousness coupled with Cobb’s unwavering determination and ruthlessness nearly always saw them walk away from a job with nary a consequence. That wasn’t to say that they’d never had a mishap or two, of course they had, (just look at the Cobol job), but they had their contingency plans and once a job was done they split, changed their identities, and ran if they had to.

It was exactly what had been done after the Inception job. Whilst Cobb had stayed in LA, Arthur knew that almost every single one of them had about-turned and boarded new flights under different aliases. It occurred to him to wonder if in the aftermath, once the high of their success had settled into a thrum of nervousness, they hadn’t been too predictable in their run.

Ariadne had returned to France, Yusuf to Kenya, Saito to Japan, and Eames had spontaneously decided a trip to England had been order. Arthur had stayed in LA for several weeks himself, checked in on Cobb and the kids, sorted out his own affairs in the city, and then taken the long and winding route to meet up with Eames in England.

Except when he’d gotten there there’d been no Eames. Just a taser to the back of his neck when he’d let himself into the flat.

They’d all, more or less, gone back to their homes. To the one place they should never have returned right off a job. No wonder they’d been so easy to track and abduct.

“You’re thinking too hard,” Saito’s voice came as a surprise and Arthur found himself jerking just a little at the sound of it. He looked up, noting that the older man had fallen into step beside him. He said nothing.

“What are you thinking about, Arthur?” Cobb asked, still walking at his side.

“I’m thinking,” he replied after a moment, “that we didn’t try nearly as hard to lie low after the Inception job.”

Cobb nodded; his face scrunched slightly in agreement and regret, and Arthur felt a lurch in his stomach as he considered just where Cobb must’ve been when he was taken.

“They’ll be fine,” he assured him, though he couldn’t possibly know whether that was true.

“We can’t be sure of that though, can we?” Cobb pressed, shoving his hands into the pockets of his jacket and staring straight ahead.

Sometime during Arthur’s musings, Eames, Ariadne and Yusuf had skipped ahead of them. The three of them looked to be enjoying themselves. Arthur felt a spike of irrational irritation as he watched them running along the path.

“I did not spend as much time with Fischer as our Mr Eames,” Saito offered, “but I would like to believe he is a man of his word. He may well surprise us.”

“A kidnapping isn’t surprising enough?” Cobb muttered.

“We should regroup.” Arthur commented, sparing Cobb a briefly concerned look before turning his gaze ahead to where their fellow team members had stopped by what looked to be a grove of trees.

“Of course,” Saito agreed. Cobb nodded wordlessly, and they pressed forward to catch up with the others.

\- - -

The grove of trees turned out not to be trees at all, but rather gigantic _mushrooms_. Arthur found himself staring in utter disbelief, not just at the sheer size and ridiculousness of them, but at the fact that Eames and Yusuf had somehow managed to pull themselves atop one of them and were currently in the process of treating it like some kind of trampoline.

“I feel a headache coming on,” Arthur muttered. Cobb snorted, then laughed as he caught sight of Ariadne trying to jump up onto one of the mushrooms; her fingertips found fleeting purchase on the springy head before she slipped off again with a soft cry of annoyance. Cobb stepped forward, offering her his hands as a make-shift step, allowing her to finally scrabble up onto the mushroom.

“Thanks, Dom!” she called down, standing cautiously before giving an experimental jump and laughing in delight as she bounced high into the air.

“Really?” Arthur commented dryly, just looking at Cobb.

“What’s the worst that could happen?” he asked with a shrug. Arthur all but refrained from smacking him upside the head as Ariadne suddenly cried out in pain.

A cube materialised out of nowhere, a good few inches above Ariadne, and if the way she was rubbing her head was anything to go by, Arthur thought it safe to assume that she’d hit it on one of her bounces. The box shimmered momentarily before spitting out a brightly coloured object. It flew up into the air before falling down, bouncing off Ariadne’s mushroom and launching itself with another bounce towards the one Eames and Yusuf were currently sharing.

“It’s a star! Grab it!” Ariadne yelled out with a delighted laugh, watching as both Eames and Yusuf launched themselves towards the object. Eames proved the victor of the two, lifting it in his hand with a triumphant cry just moments before the star-like shape flickered and _spewed_ itself all over him. Shocked at the sudden reaction, Eames ended up tripping over his own feet and stumbling right off the edge of the mushroom.

“ _Eames_!” more than one of them shouted out. They watched, horrified, as Eames started to fall. Except things suddenly seemed to happen in slow motion, with Eames able to twist himself around and land in an almost graceful crouch by the time he finally reached the ground.

“Nice,” Yusuf commented, peeking over the side of his mushroom.

“That was… interesting,” Eames said, standing up and looking himself over. His hands were sparkling with whatever residue the star had showered him with. He tried to wipe them on his suit jacket to no avail. Arthur noted that his face was sparkling, too.

“Are you okay?” Arthur asked instead, moving towards him. Eames looked up, his mouth twitching a smile before he reached out and swiped one of his hands down Arthur’s chest. Or rather, and more importantly, down his rather expensive and ridiculously well tailored _suit_.

Arthur smacked at Eames’ hands, checking his jacket for any traces or stains. He found neither but glared at Eames for good measure anyway, seeing that the sparkle was already starting to trickle away from his skin.

“Hey,” Yusuf called down to them, “do you think that fall was a result of the gravity here or just because of whatever that star thing was?”

“Why don’t you jump off and see?” Eames coaxed, throwing him a grin. Yusuf actually paused to consider it before pushing to his knees.

“Yusuf, I don’t think—” Cobb tried to warn, but either Yusuf didn’t hear or he chose not to, because in the next instant he was leaping off the mushroom, his face scrunched in a manner that suggested to Arthur he suspected himself that this was not such a good idea.

Thankfully the gravity theory proved right, and they watched as Yusuf moved his legs in a cycling manner, leisurely making his way down to ground level. Eames clapped him on the back in congratulations. Though whether for a job well done or to commend him on the sheer stupidity of trying it out in the first place, Arthur wasn’t entirely sure.

Above them, Ariadne clapped her hands in delight. “I want to try it,” she exclaimed, moving towards the end of the mushroom with careful steps. Cobb moved instinctively forward. Instead of leaping off the mushroom like Yusuf had, however, Ariadne gave a somewhat delicate hop instead, her body floating down inch by inch. She grinned jubilantly at them once her feet touched ground and normal gravity took hold once more.

“Let’s do that again!” she grinned.

“We should probably discuss—” Arthur started but Ariadne waved him off.

“Just one more jump, Arthur! Then we can get down to business!” she said before turning back to the mushroom she’d been standing on. Cobb moved forward to help her up again. Arthur pursed his lips as he watched as Cobb then levered himself up after her. And then Eames and Yusuf were clambering back up one of the stems with Saito not far behind them, though he at least refrained from clambering up on any of the mushrooms himself.

In the next instant Eames was somersaulting his way off the top of one of the mushrooms, his body spinning once, twice, three times before he finally reached the ground with a wide grin. Arthur rolled his eyes and turned away, half-watching as Cobb leapt his way from one mushroom to the next with large, embellished bounces.

“You shouldn’t be afraid to have a little fun, darling,” Eames teased, coming up behind him; his breath came in exhilarated little puffs against his ear.

Arthur made a soft noise at the back of his throat and tried not to shiver at the proximity. Eames stepped a little closer.

“Bet you can’t beat that jump,” he ribbed.

“I am not rising to the bait, Mr Eames.” Arthur said, smiling despite himself. He felt Eames’ arm as it snaked its way around his waist and he hurriedly stepped forward, twisting to look pointedly at Eames.

“Arthur!” Ariadne’s call saved Eames from whatever comment Arthur’d been about to lash him with.

“Come on, Arthur,” she begged, smiling so sweetly that Arthur felt himself wavering.

“Yes, _come on_ , Arthur,” Eames goaded. Usually he wouldn’t be so easily manipulated, but… it did look sort of fun.

Eames laughed, seeing the look on his face. “Come on,” he repeated, moving back towards one of the mushrooms, “I’ll give you a leg up.”

Arthur stared at him a long moment before giving in. He let Eames boost him up, taking extra care to step on the other man’s head as he went.

“Oh, how careless of me!” Arthur called down over the sound Eames’ spluttering.

“Piss off!” Eames shouted up to him, but he was grinning.

Arthur moved towards the edge, and heaved a put-upon sigh as he noticed the others watching him carefully.

He turned around, bending his knees slightly before pushing off in a back-flip that saw him spinning four times in the air before he released his legs and landed in a controlled crouch, his arms extended out for balance.

Ariadne was clapping again, and Eames let out a slow whistle as Arthur straightened both his body and then his suit.

“I guess you showed me,” he said, smiling widely.

Arthur raised his chin haughtily, “I guess I did.”

Eames laughed and slung an arm around Arthur’s shoulders, his fingers brushing Arthur’s neck before Arthur shook him off.

“Are we done now?” he asked.

“You’re such a spoilsport, Arthur,” Eames said, sighing dramatically as they watched the others jumping from their mushrooms to the ground. Cobb reached up towards Ariadne, who had chosen to slip off hers this time rather than jump, though there wasn’t really any need.

“We should really press on—” Arthur tried as soon as they were all down, only to be interrupted by an excited squeak from Ariadne.

“Eames!” she cried out, pointing towards another shimmering cube floating just past the last of the mushrooms. The pair of them rushed forward, Yusuf hurrying after them.

“Oh, what now,” Arthur huffed.

Saito shot him a look of amusement. “You give in very easily.”

He was the only one of them who hadn’t tried his hand at the mushrooms.

Arthur smiled, fleetingly, as Saito walked past him towards the new cube, and with a shake of his head, he followed.

“Gentleman, if you’ll allow me?” Saito said, moving to stand between Cobb and Yusuf. Arthur was surprised that they hadn’t yet smashed the box open. The two men moved and the others took a few precautionary steps back as Saito moved himself into a crouched position seconds before he leapt into the air, one leg extended outwards in a high kick that connected soundly with the cube. He landed with as much grace and dignity as he’d had before the jump.

Everyone stared.

Saito cleared his throat, “I am not just an old man,” he commented with a slight smile before gesturing towards the cube which shimmered and spat out what looked to be a green mushroom. Yusuf picked it up and eyed it curiously.

“Not one I’m familiar with,” he noted dryly, looking to Eames who chuckled as though sharing some private joke.

“Yeah, but, you know what the green ones do, right?” Ariadne pressed as though already knowing the answer.

“If we go with your theory, then yes,” Yusuf agreed. “There’s not any safe way to test it, though.”

Eames laughed. “About as safe as jumping off the mushrooms, I’d say.”

Arthur frowned, but it was Cobb who asked them what they were talking about.

Yusuf launched into a speech about mushroom types and how this one didn’t fit into any of the classifications of fungi he’d come across back in the waking world, which was, of course, to be expected, seeing as they were in somebody else’s dream, and if the dream was following the same sort of rules they (they being Eames, Ariadne and himself) expected, then the _green_ mushroom should have healing properties and—

Arthur’s frown deepened. “Just where do you think we are?” he asked as Yusuf paused for breath.

“Oh, right, well—” but before he could finish he let loose a yelp and collapsed to the ground, grabbing at his left leg as if in pain. Beside him _something_ the size of Arthur’s head was hissing at Yusuf with sharp looking fangs - fangs, which had quite plainly just taken a bite at Yusuf’s leg. The little creature was a mottled brown colour with short, stumpy legs and no arms. It hissed and leapt again at Yusuf.

Yusuf yelled, kicking out with his good leg as the rest of them scattered themselves in an endeavour to get away from the little creature. Eames grabbed Yusuf by his underarms and dragged him several paces back. The creature hissed, staring around at them with large, dark eyes before bouncing a few times on the spot and launching itself towards Yusuf once more.

Eames was yelling for someone to get the creature- apparently named a Goomba, if his shouts were anything to go by- away from them as he tried to drag Yusuf further from it. Cobb stepped forward and launched a kick at the Goomba - a move that may have been effective on any other occasion but this one. The second his boot came into proximity of the creature it turned on Cobb, its sinister looking teeth sinking into the tip of his boot and stopping Cobb in his tracks.

The creature let go a moment later, making more spitting and hissing noises before turning back to its intended target: Yusuf.

Arthur stepped in before anyone else could think to try and use the Goomba as a football. It turned instantly to him, baring its fangs in a threatening display. Arthur gave it a pointed look before quite calmly whipping his Glock out of the hidden shoulder holster beneath his suit jacket and shooting it right between its baleful eyes.

It exploded in a mess of brown and pink gunk, splattering at his shoes and the hem of his trousers. Arthur sighed, re-holstering his gun and shaking at his pant leg ineffectually. He sighed again. He had a feeling his suit wasn’t going to survive the entirety of this dream intact.

“Thanks,” Yusuf said after a moment of simply staring at Arthur. Everyone else was still staring.

“How’s the leg?” Arthur asked, and suddenly everyone was turning to Yusuf, and checking to make sure he was alright.

“Its bite seems to have some kind of paralytic effect,” Yusuf announced, bitterly. “I cannot feel my leg up to my knee. It doesn’t seem to be spreading any higher, thankfully.”

“Cobb, your foot?” Arthur asked.

“Fine,” he said, staring at the marks where the creature’s teeth had punctured through the leather of his boot. “It missed me, just.”

“Well, that decides it,” Eames announced then, standing from his position beside Yusuf. “I think—”

“ _We_ ,” Ariadne interrupted, with a conspiring grin. Eames grinned back.

“ _We_ ,” he amended, “think we know where we are.”

The three of them- Eames, Ariadne, and Yusuf from his position on the ground- looked extraordinarily pleased with themselves.

“You’ve been here before?” Saito asked, looking around with renewed curiosity, as if in an endeavour to recognise something – _anything_ \- about the world they’d found themselves in.

“In a manner of speaking,” Eames hedged, still grinning.

Arthur choked back a huff of frustration, his restraint only partially successful if the delighted look Eames shot him was anything to go by.

“Well?” Cobb asked, just as impatient.

“We’re in a level of Super Mario,” Yusuf answered, to glares from Eames and Ariadne, his own grin just as wide and excited as theirs had been.

“The Super Mario Brothers?” Saito queried, eyebrows rising.

“Like the game?” Cobb asked, face creased in question.

Arthur pinched the bridge of his nose and closed his eyes, praying for strength as he forced himself to ask, “You expect us to believe we’re in some kind of—what? A video game?”

Eames waved one arm dismissively. “What’s not to believe? We have giant mushrooms—”

Ariadne jumped in, “—and boxes hanging in mid-air with _stuff_ inside—”

“—and don’t forget that devilled mushroom man!” Yusuf finished with a glare towards the slicked patch of grass and the splattered remains of said creature.

Arthur wanted to say that it was impossible, that no Architect in their right mind would construct a level based on a _game_ , that in doing so they would alert the dreamers to the fact they were in a dream and inevitably destabilise the world they’d created and bring the whole thing crashing down, but—

“Does that still hold true if the dreamers are already aware that they’re dreaming?” Ariadne questioned, and Arthur realised he must’ve spoken aloud.

“Knowing it was,” Arthur began before correcting himself, “ _is_ a dream, I suppose we’re all too used to dreaming. We’ve instinctively kept calm, accepted that we’re dreaming and have been playing along with the physics of this world as they’ve been presented to us.”

“And the dream level has remained stable and unaffected.” Cobb agreed.

“Could we change the dream then?” Ariadne asked. “If it’s just us, would it be like the training exercises we did? I could change—”

“I’d rather you didn’t,” Arthur said quickly. “We haven’t come across any projections yet,” he spared a look at the creature’s remains, “but changing anything could bring them to us en force.”

“Do you think that thing _was_ a projection?” Eames asked with curiosity.

“I have no idea,” Arthur admitted. “If this were simply a game I’d say no, but knowing we’re dreaming?”

“I could always attempt to forge it,” Eames offered, only partially serious.

“Don’t even think about it.” Arthur warned. Then, when it seemed Eames would rise to the challenge, threatened, “I _will_ shoot you. And if what Fischer said was true, if we die in this dream we’re not going to wake up.”

Eames folded his arms across his chest, unfazed. “You’d totally fetch me from Limbo.”

Saito spoke before Arthur had to think of a suitable response for Eames.

“Was it true?” Saito questioned, clarified, “His information about the sedative?”

Yusuf nodded, looking up from where he’d been prodding at his leg. “I’m afraid so. I, er…” he drifted off, looking pained.

“Okay?” Eames asked, immediately dropping the smirk he’d been directing at Arthur as he stepped closer to Yusuf, clapping at his shoulder.

“Oh, yes. It’s just… well, I think I may have sold him the sedative he’s using to keep us under.” He cleared his throat, smiling awkwardly.

“You _what_?” Cobb was glowering.

“Well it’s not as if I _knew_ it was for _him_ , specifically. But I did recently finish a batch much in likeness to the one we used for the Inception job and, well…” he drifted off.

“I can’t believe this,” Cobb hissed.

“Hey, I’m a chemist. This is what I do. Generally my clients don’t try to dose me with my own product.” The last bit was a resentful mumble.

Cobb pursed his lips but said nothing.

“After I’d sold them it, they gassed me. Chloroform, I think. Who even uses that anymore?” he asked with evident disgust. “I woke up just before they brought me into the warehouse,” he finished, looking down and prodding at his leg again. It was more for something to do than any real attempt to get the feeling back.

No one said anything for a good few minutes.

Eames squeezed at Yusuf’s shoulder. “Think you’re good to walk?” he asked a long moment later.

“Um, yeah. Help me up.”

“Right, so where does this leave us now?” Cobb asked as Eames pulled Yusuf to his feet.

“We can’t change anything in the dream,” Ariadne offered, “and we can’t kill ourselves. I guess our only option is to play the game?”

“We can’t just go along with this,” Arthur said, frowning.

“I don’t see any other options?” Ariadne’s words came out as a question.

“It doesn’t seem too sinister,” Cobb agreed, repeating his words to Arthur earlier. Arthur cringed, wishing he wouldn’t say things like that. “There may not be any harm in playing along.”

“But there’s no danger here,” Arthur pressed, ignoring Yusuf’s pointed look. “We should stay put and wait for the sedative to wear off. Why endanger ourselves by sinking into deeper levels?”

“I’m with Arthur on this one,” Eames agreed.

“We have no idea how long we’ll be under, though,” Yusuf added, his arm slung around Eames’ shoulders for support. “It amounted to about a week in the first level for the Inception job. Could we survive for so long - or longer - here without food and water?”

“It isn’t just about whether we could survive in this level. Fischer is somewhere in this dream,” Saito added, “and he was very clear about us completing this task before releasing us. Let us not forget we’re all still at his mercy once we awaken.”

“What about this thing we’re supposed to retrieve on the third level?” Eames asked, almost as an afterthought after everyone had taken a moment to think over Saito’s words. “What was it Fischer said? That it’s something—” he waggled his fingers as if looking for the word.

“—dear?” Arthur offered.

“Yes?” Eames answered, smiling sweetly.

Arthur tried very hard not to roll his eyes, he really did, but it was a battle he found himself losing with astounding frequency.

“He said that something very _dear_ to us would be waiting in the third level,” Arthur finished.

“That’s the ticket!” Eames agreed, smiling.

“What could be dear to all of us?” Saito questioned.

They looked at each other blankly.

As if on cue, the world around them began to dim. Almost as one they turned their gazes up towards the sky, noting the sudden invasion of clouds, their dark grey bodies quickly multiplying across the sky and blocking out the sun. An ominous rumbling could be heard in the distance, the sound of it getting steadily louder and louder and _closer_.

“Rain, d’you think?” Eames asked, shifting Yusuf’s weight. He looked vaguely uncomfortable, and Arthur remembered with fond sympathy of Eames’ extreme dislike of storms. He said dislike, because Eames refused to acknowledge it as a fear, even if the sight and sound of one sent him scurrying for his duvet more times than not.

“Should we head back to the mushrooms?” Ariadne enquired nervously. “They’d at least offer us some sort of shelter if it does rain.”

“This doesn’t feel right,” Saito said then, ignoring the question. He crouched down, pressing his fingertips to the ground and feeling a faint vibration. “Something is coming.”

He looked up, brow furrowed. Arthur felt a shiver of unease creep its way up his spine. He widened his stance, one hand on his gun holster, his eyes sweeping the world around them. Beside him Eames set Yusuf down and stepped in front of him, pulling a semi-automatic from beneath his own jacket. Cobb too was similarly armed, but neither Saito nor Ariadne had anything with which to arm themselves.

Not that it mattered much in the end, Arthur thought to himself. One minute they’d formed themselves into a rough circle, eyes sharp, ears tuned for the slightest hint of danger, and the next there was a scream from Ariadne - they’d all twisted on the spot to see _something_ hovering just overhead on what looked like a goddamned _cloud_ of all things. The creature was scaled in green and yellow, its reptilian face looking worryingly deadly after facing down what Yusuf referred to as the ‘ _mushroom man_ ’.

Arthur raised his gun at the same time as Eames and Cobb did, the three of them firing simultaneously at the creature only to find that it blinked out of sight before anything could hit.

“What the fuck?” Eames cursed, gun still pointed skywards.

“That’s nothing like the Lakitu in the games,” Yusuf muttered, pushing himself up. Though he didn’t put too much pressure on his injured leg, the knowledge that he was standing on his own at all was something of a relief to them.

“No,” Eames agreed, understanding, before frowning and looking skywards again.

“Cobb, behind you!” Yusuf called suddenly and they spun around see the reptilian creature zooming towards them; it stopped just out of range this time, hovering.

“What’s it waiting for?” Saito spoke, his voice pitched low as he slowly stepped back, putting himself in front of Yusuf and Ariadne and allowing Cobb, Eames and Arthur to form a semi-circle in front of him.

“Um, guys…” Ariadne started suddenly. “Guys, I think that’s the least of our worries.”

The world, if possible, seemed to darken further. Cobb hurriedly signalled for Arthur to keep his eyes trained on the reptilian creature before turning to look at Ariadne… and the creature standing right in front of her.

“Well, shit,” Eames commented, having turned as well.

“Eames?” Arthur hissed, though his gun was still raised, his attention was half on whatever was happening behind him.

“Now, darling, I don’t want you to worry, but we seem to have had some kind of gargantuan dinosaur sneak up on us.”

“ _What_?” It took all of Arthur’s willpower not to twist around and take a look for himself. The reptile on the cloud started floating back and forth in a teasing motion. Arthur gritted his teeth. It seemed to be inching closer with every sway but never moving quite close enough.

“Eames,” Arthur hissed again. “Do I shoot?”

“I’d rather you didn’t just yet,” he answered with a mumble. Arthur felt him brush up against his back and experienced a momentary relief at the touch. “Cobb?”

“Yusuf?” Cobb called instead.

“I can’t run, if that’s what you’re asking,” Yusuf replied.

Arthur heard someone other than Eames curse this time.

“But, you know, if you promise to pick me up in Limbo on the way out…” he drifted off, going for carefree but sounding more than a little terrified at the mere mention of Limbo.

“Eames?” Cobb’s voice, the question instinctively understood.

“Maybe one magazine left,” Eames said by way of answering, “and don’t even ask me about the grenade launcher.”

“Arthur?” Cobb again.

“Enough maybe to get this guy if he comes close enough,” he said, taking his cue from Eames’ answer, “but that’s about it.”

“Why isn’t it doing anything?” Yusuf asked.

“It’s like it’s waiting for something,” Eames muttered.

“Same with mine,” Arthur muttered back, his entire body felt tight and on edge.

“Ariadne, I want you to slowly step backwards. You too, Yusuf, Saito. We’re going to try and get in front.” Arthur felt a brief touch at his hip before Eames stepped away from him. “As soon as we start firing I want you guys to make a break for it.”

They’d hardly started moving before there was a loud _roaring_ from the creature behind Arthur. He only just heard Cobb’s yell of ‘ _Get down!’_ before the ground beneath them shook and Arthur was thrown off his feet. Barely seconds after he’d rolled away, a ball of fire slammed into the ground just paces from where his head had been.

He scrambled quickly to his knees, twisting to look behind him, his mouth dropping open in horror at the sight of the creature behind them. _Bowser_ , his mind supplied unhelpfully, unearthing the knowledge from long ago days spent smashing buttons on the little grey controller. Though, the sight of its rippling scale-like armour, the spiked shell on its back and the fangs dripping with gloops of saliva did nothing to correlate the creature before him with the one from the actual game.

Before any of them could raise their guns, the creature let loose another roar, spitting balls of fire as it stomped forward and raked one clawed hand towards their collective group. Arthur dived to the side before one of the fire balls could hit him, coming up on his back just as he heard gunshots.

“Stop shooting!” Cobb’s voice again. Ariadne screamed, the creature’s roar all but drowning out the sound. Eames cursed again. Arthur rolled up onto his knees, gun already pointed ahead of him and, well, damn. The creature had lifted Ariadne, its clawed hand, almost the same size as her, curling tightly around her squirming body, her small fists battering ineffectually at its grip.

Stalemate.

And then—

“ _I will have taken something very dear to you all,_ ” Fischer’s disembodied voice sounded suddenly, booming across the world. “ _I will hide it in the third level. If you want it back, you will play the game._ ”

Before the words had properly processed the creature was turning and galloping away from them with heavy footfalls.

“DOM!” Ariadne’s scream rang loud and terrified, spurring them into action. Cobb was on his feet in seconds, chasing after a creature he had no hopes of ever catching up to, Saito and Eames hot on his heels.

Arthur twisted away, his eyes scanning the skies for the reptilian creature he was meant to be keeping an eye on, but there was nothing there. He turned back, reaching towards Yusuf and wordlessly offering him a shoulder in support as he made to follow the rest of his teammates.

Above them the clouds dispersed almost as quickly as they’d appeared.

“It’s funny,” Yusuf said almost ten minutes after they’d started after the others, leaning heavily on Arthur.

“What is?” Arthur asked, teeth gritted.

“This,” he waved his free hand as if to encompass their surroundings. “It’s very much like the game now. Ariadne is our princess, and like Mario we must save her from the monster that has kidnapped her.”

“I don’t know about you, Yusuf, but nothing about this situation makes me want to laugh.”

“No,” Yusuf agreed. “Though I meant funny-peculiar, in that none of us knew what was dear to us all before now.”

\- - -

They caught up to the others almost a half hour later and Arthur gratefully lowered Yusuf to sit on a random stack of bricks they were waiting beside. The world stretched out in a long and seemingly infinite line, and Arthur wondered just how much further they were expected to go before reaching the next level.

“We lost sight of it,” Eames said, moving to stand at his side. Arthur nodded, his eyes riveting on Cobb, who was staring off into the middle distance, his chest still heaving from the exertion of the run.

“There’s nothing else for it then,” Saito said. “Now we play the game.”

Arthur nodded absently, watching as Cobb turned and kicked out angrily at the wall of bricks, the structure crumbling easily around his boot.

“Feel better?” Eames asked, stepping forward.

Cobb glared at him. “Are we ready?”

“One moment.” He moved towards the brickwork, reaching out to push aside large chunks of red brick before coming up with—

“—bullets?” Yusuf’s disbelief was palpable. Arthur’s eyebrows retreated into his hairline as he moved in for a closer look.

“What’re the chances of these being the exact type needed for our guns?” Eames asked, twirling the magazine in his fingers.

“Slim to none?” Arthur hedged.

Eames shook his head. “Exact match,” he said before kicking at the brickwork much in the same way Cobb had done and scrabbling around in the debris. Nothing. He did it again. Nothing. Again. Nothing.

“Eames—” Arthur started.

“Don’t you get it yet?” Eames frowned, interrupting. “We’re playing _Mario_ here. You know the drill, Arthur.”

Cobb stepped in then, pushing in beside Arthur and helping Eames to break down the stack of bricks section by section. Saito moved to pull Yusuf to his feet as they neared his end but Yusuf waved him off, pushing to his feet and jiggling his leg a moment.

“Good as new, I think,” he tested the weight, grinning as he remained standing.

Cobb gave a frustrated noise from behind them - only one magazine for their efforts. Arthur kept his mouth closed, watching as Eames handed it over to Cobb, who took it without thanks before moving forwards. With no other choice but to follow, to _play the game_ , they stepped into place and started the long trek to wherever this road would lead them.

\- - -

Stoicism in the face of what had transpired was never likely to last long with men like Eames and Yusuf around. Arthur had known Eames long enough to understand that sometimes his joking around was a front to hide whatever dark emotions were broiling just beneath the surface. It could be annoying and insensitive at times, but it was something Arthur generally tried to ignore about him, especially in situations like this where joking in any form was never going to be the best of ideas.

He hadn’t known Yusuf as long as Eames, but Arthur knew Eames well enough to recognise that pairing him up with Yusuf was always going to be a cause for concern.

Whilst they were following the one and only path they could, it had changed from being an overgrown pathway plush with grass and foliage to an actual dirt track; dry sand puffing up around their heels with every step. The long grass lining the fence was turning brown; drying out with the unrepentant heat of the sun still hanging, high and unmoving, in the sky above them.

They found themselves soon dragging their feet through a series of pipe-like structures protruding from the earth, in a variety of greens, and reds, and yellows. Arthur swore he could hear scratching noises as he passed by one of the larger ones.

“Oh, go on!” Yusuf goaded suddenly.

Arthur watched as Cobb’s jaw tightened fractionally as half-covered chortles of amusement sounded from behind them. Arthur shot a heated look over his shoulder and received two defensive palms-up from Eames and a huge-ass grin to boot. Saito shrugged helplessly when Arthur turned his attention to him, but he turned towards the other two and the three of them paused a moment in discussion, allowing Arthur and Cobb to put some distance between them

“We’ll get her back,” Arthur said after a long moment of silence, turning back to look at Cobb.

“Yeah,” Cobb answered. Arthur almost sighed in relief at getting even a one word response from him.

“You know she was coming to visit me? Before we were taken, she was about to get on a flight to LA,” Cobb said, somewhat offhandedly. Arthur frowned at him.

“She wanted to meet the kids. She- she saw a lot of Mal before the Inception job. Memories of Mal,” he corrected. “And the kids too.”

“Cobb,” Arthur hesitated, not quite sure how to proceed. Cobb very rarely shared personal information, even with Arthur who was the closest thing he had to a friend. Not since Mal…

“I put her in danger,” Cobb muttered, almost as if to himself. “I put you all in danger.”

“No. Cobb, listen, we - all of us - we were careless. We knew the risks, we knew what we should have done after the job and none of us followed through. We’re all at fault for this.”

Cobb shook his head. “I was in charge,” he said, “I should have made sure. If I hadn’t been so—”

“You can’t blame yourself for this, Cobb.” Arthur pressed.

“Maybe not for you, Arthur. Or even Eames and Yusuf. But for everyone else the Inception job was the first and we – _I_ \- failed to see things through to the end. I was so blinded—”

Arthur grabbed at Cobb’s arm. “Listen to me,” Arthur squeezed his hand, causing Cobb to look up. “We’re going to get her back. We’re going to get out of this… this _game_. And then we’re going to finish this.”

“I saw them coming, you know,” Cobb said instead of offering his agreement to Arthur’s speech.

“What?” Arthur stopped, his footsteps faltering.

“The men who came to kidnap me. I had the kids at the park—” he drifted off. Arthur blanched. “They let me call Miles to pick them up. Said if I went quietly, they wouldn’t hurt them.”

Arthur swore under his breath. “Are they okay? Did they—”

Cobb shook his head. “Miles got them. Didn’t ask any questions. I didn’t put up a fight, Arthur. I couldn’t- not with…”

“We’re going to get out of this,” he repeated, needing to hear the words himself.

“I don’t want to have to run again, Arthur.”

“You won’t have to.”

“You can’t promise me that,” Cobb spat then.

“We’ll finish this,” Arthur said, and it sounded very much like a promise even to his own ears.

Cobb opened his mouth, probably to argue, but whatever words had been on the tip of his tongue fell away at the sound of laughter coming from some way behind them. They turned towards the sounds to find that Eames had clambered atop some of the pipe work they were currently passing by. He was jumping on one of the larger pipes to laughter from Yusuf. Even Saito looked like he was amused if the slight lifting of his mouth was any indication.

“Oh for the love of—” Arthur sighed. He squeezed once more at Cobb’s arm before making his way towards the trio.

“Maybe you need to use your ass?” He heard Yusuf say before the two of them started chortling like schoolboys. “Just like Mario!”

“That’s got to hurt,” Saito commented, dryly, nodding at Arthur and his frown as he joined them.

“Eames, what the hell are you doing?” he called up, glaring as Eames smiled innocently down at him.

“Just passing the time,” he answered innocently, shoving his hands into the pockets of his jacket.

Cobb’s face darkened at his words and Arthur hurriedly stepped in closer. Eames lowered himself into a seated position, legs dangling over the edge of the pipe.

“Damnit, Eames, we don’t have time for you to be playing—”

“— _games_?” Eames interrupted. “Of course not, darling, but while you boys were having your little tête-à-tête, we thought we’d test out a theory. See just how much like the game this level is.”

Arthur touched Eames’ knee fleetingly. “Are you finished?” he asked, trying to hide his aggravation.

“It has, admittedly, been a while since I last played, but in the actual game you could slip down some of the pipe-work. It worked as a shortcut to different areas of the same level. Sometimes they would lead you to a game within a game, but mostly they worked just as a way to get from A to B whilst skipping everything in between.”

Arthur looked thoughtful. “You think we might find a shortcut to the next level?”

“Maybe not to the next level, but certainly to the end of this one,” Eames answered with a shrug.

“We don’t have time,” Cobb began, not bothering to hide his irritation at all, “to jump on every damn thing we pass and hope it does something useful. We need to get to the end of this stupid game and get Ariadne, who is three levels down and having who knows what done to her by that monster.”

“She should be okay,” Yusuf offered. “I mean in the game the princess was never actually hurt.”

“This isn’t the same game!” Cobb snapped. “Did those creatures look anything like the ones you played with? No! Do you think for one moment that if we get killed we’re just going to spring back into existence with an extra life? No! Just because this looks the same as the goddamned game doesn’t mean it’s anything like it.”

“Cobb, they know,” Arthur said. Cobb’s face was flushed with anger as he turned on Arthur.

“Do they? Because they look like they’re more inclined to dick around than to actually _do_ anything.”

Eames shifted and Arthur glanced up, watching as Eames’ smile morphed into to a glare he directed at Cobb. Arthur discreetly touched his leg, shaking his head.

“We _know_ , Cobb,” Arthur tried again. “Look. We’re all a bit out of our comfort zones at the moment. We just _all_ need to focus and move on.”

“Right,” Eames said tightly, wriggling his way towards the edge of the pipe. “If you would kindly step aside, Arthur, I’ll just— _oh!_ ”

Whatever Eames had been about to say was lost as he suddenly fell backwards, his legs flying up and over as the pipe he sat upon suddenly _opened_ , sucking Eames inside within seconds and sealing itself closed an instant later.

“ _Eames!_ ” Arthur cried out, launching himself at the pipe. He wasn’t thinking entirely clearly when he started trying to scrabble his way up in a desperate urge to get up and then _in_ after Eames. All he knew was that he needed to get Eames back.

Hands grabbed at him from behind, dragging him away from the pipe.

“Let me—” he struggled against whoever it was holding him. “I have to—”

“Arthur, you can’t,” Cobb stepped in front of him, grabbing at his shoulders and stilling his struggling. “We don’t know where it goes and we can’t risk it. We need to keep going.”

“We _need_ to get Eames back!” Arthur pulled himself almost violently from— Saito, he noted, half turning to see who’d been holding him. Behind Saito he saw Yusuf scrambling unnoticed up the pipe work.

“You’d do the same,” Arthur said, more calmly. The sudden change in his temperament was enough to send alarm bells ringing for Cobb and Saito, who turned in time to see Yusuf sitting himself at the edge of the pipe work, exactly where Eames had been, and wriggling on the spot.

“Yusuf!” Cobb yelled, throwing his hands up into the air.

Arthur bit his lip, heart hammering in his chest as he waited for the pipe to open up and suck Yusuf down to wherever Eames was.

Nothing happened.

Yusuf frowned, meeting Arthur’s eyes with a helpless expression. He tried again with the same results, and Arthur turned away with a silent curse. He didn’t wait for the others, he just started walking.

Cobb caught up with him first, his fingers tentative as they touched at his forearm.

“Arthur—” he began, voice just as tentative as his touch.

“Save it. I know the speech off by heart.”

Cobb nodded once, hand falling away. Yusuf slipped up beside him soon after, with Saito moving to Cobb’s other side.

None of them spoke and Arthur was more than happy to trudge along the dirt track in silence. They ended up moving through more giant mushrooms and seemingly randomly placed brick pyramids; they even passed a floating cube or two, but Arthur barely noticed any of it as he forced himself to keep moving, to _not_ think about Eames and where he could be, if he was even still alive…

He tried to shake his thoughts away from that line of thought but he kept returning to it. He felt the lack of laughter, the constant hum of back and forth bantering, the most. There was no more joviality between them, whatever there had been since Ariadne’s kidnapping. _Second_ kidnapping, he unhelpfully corrected.

Arthur pressed his fingers to his temple. They’d lost two of their party already and they were still only on the first level. At least they knew for certain Ariadne was on the third level (though who knew what state she would be in), but Eames? Arthur had no idea if they’d ever see him again, if he was simply somewhere else in the game or somewhere worse. He bit at the insides of his cheeks. It wouldn’t do to think about that now.

Fischer hadn’t been joking when he’d said the stakes would be just as high as with the Inception job. Arthur wished he knew how Fisher had found out, how he’d made them all and formulated this plan. He wished he hadn’t been so short with Eames.

“Here,” Saito said from beside him and Arthur started a moment at the sound. He hadn’t even noticed that Yusuf was no longer walking at his side. Saito had moved to walk beside him, and he was holding something out towards him. Arthur reached for it instinctively and found himself staring down at a magazine much in likeness to the one Eames had found earlier.

“Where did you get this?” he asked, frowning.

“Yusuf and I are checking as we go, just in case.” Saito answered and Arthur turned to see Yusuf a couple paces back, kicking at another stack of bricks.

“I— thanks,” he answered lamely, and Saito touched lightly at his shoulder, the gesture unexpected and fleeting. Before Arthur could bring any attention to it, Saito had already stepped away, falling back to join Yusuf. Beside him Cobb ran a hand over his face.

“I guess it’s not such a waste of time,” Arthur commented, pocketing the magazine.

“I guess not,” Cobb said. It was as much an agreement as either of them was going to give.

\- - -

They’d been walking for just over forty-five minutes, heads down and feet dragging, the sun above them relentless as it bore down hot and heavy upon them, sapping at their strength, before their next break came.

The world ahead shimmered under the glare of the sun, but through it they could just make out another collection of pipes and what looked to be some kind of pyramid a little way past that.

“Is that—” Yusuf started. Arthur looked at him, seeing the other man squinting up ahead. “Eames?”

“What?” Arthur quickly turned his attention up ahead, eyes straining to make out the outline of a person standing beneath the shadows of the pipe works.

“I think it’s Eames,” Yusuf said. They all picked up the pace without prompt. Arthur felt his heart pick up pace, too, adrenaline coursing through his body as they all but ran towards the pipe-work to find a very smug looking Eames leaning quite casually against one of the pipes.

Arthur found himself skidding to a halt just feet away from him. Yusuf rushed past him laughing and clapping Eames on the back. Eames returned the gesture, announcing with glee that the pipe had indeed been a shortcut! Yusuf filled him in on their own attempts to follow, but with no luck.

“You’re lucky you didn’t end up somewhere else,” Cobb hedged and Eames nodded, smile fading just a little as he accepted a handshake from the other man.

“Yeah,” he agreed, in a more sober tone. “I’ll remember that.”

Cobb nodded, stepping aside. Beside him, Saito dipped his head in greeting.

“There’s a fortress up ahead, just past that staircase,” Eames said then, gesturing towards the pyramid of bricks. “I didn’t want to explore too much but I suspect it’ll be through it that we get down to the next level.”

They all nodded and started moving forward again, all but Arthur. He hadn’t moved since he’d come close enough to see Eames, alive and real and in front of him. Eames waited for the others to step away before turning back to Arthur.

“You alright?” he asked, casual as anything.

“I thought—” Arthur swallowed against the sudden dryness of his mouth. He hadn’t wanted to think it, but the idea that Eames was dead had crossed his mind.

“Ah,” Eames teased, “did you miss me, love?”

Arthur felt his jaw clench tight both at the patronising tone and the pet name. He didn’t know whether he wanted to kiss or kill Eames right now. So he did the next best thing and stepped up to him, his fist coming almost out of nowhere to crack across Eames’ jaw. Before Eames had even finished gasping out his shock at being hit by Arthur of all people, Arthur had grabbed him by the lapels of his horrendous suit and jerked him forward into a hard and unforgiving kiss.

Eames, despite the hurt to his jaw, let his mouth open just slightly, relaxing his lips against Arthur’s assault. He touched his hands to Arthur’s sides, his fingers stroking their way soothingly up and down as he whispered his apologies against Arthur’s mouth.

“You pull that shit again, Mr Eames, and I will kill you myself,” Arthur whispered, pulling back, his fingers still white-knuckled in their grip on his jacket. Eames reached up to cover them with his own before leaning in and pressing his mouth to Arthur’s in a gentler kiss.

Someone cleared their throat then. Arthur froze, abruptly remembering where they were, and perhaps more importantly _who_ they were with. He licked his lips almost unconsciously as he pulled away from Eames, who didn’t seem in the least bit fazed at having been caught kissing a co-worker.

Cobb’s eyes were narrowed, his look long-suffering, when Arthur looked at him. He could see that Yusuf was hiding a grin behind his hand and Saito had partially turned away as though to give them privacy.

Arthur cleared his own throat awkwardly, hands fluttering over his suit and straightening it uselessly.

“Shall we?” Eames asked, half-bowing and gesturing in the direction of the staircase.

“Let’s,” Arthur agreed, ducking his head as he moved past the others, Eames falling into step beside him, arm brushing almost casually up against Arthur’s with every step.

Cobb moved to take up position at his other side and Arthur slanted him a somewhat anxious look. The look Cobb returned was carefully neutral.

“Something you’ve been meaning to tell me, Arthur?” he asked carefully.

“Can this wait until after we wake up?” Arthur sighed. Eames snorted back laughter and Arthur jabbed at him with his elbow.

Cobb opened his mouth to answer at the same time a tinny tune started to play out across the world. They all stopped, pausing for a long and curious moment before Yusuf and Eames simultaneously shot each other panicked looks and yelled out for everyone to start running.

“What is it?” Arthur gasped as Eames grabbed his arm and all but dragged him towards a short pyramid of bricks. Arthur hurried to follow, scratching his hands against the brickwork as he scrabbled up the somewhat steep incline.

“It’s the countdown,” Eames yelled over his shoulder. “We need to get into the fortress before—”

“Before what?” He grabbed Eames’ proffered hand as he reached the top.

Eames ignored the question.

“You need to jump, aim for the flag pole then get your arse into that fortress,” he gave Arthur a rough shove towards the edge.

Arthur looked down, saw the flag pole and the fortress and flashed back to playing Mario as a teenager with a stomach-rolling sense of déjà vu. This could not be happening. Arthur looked back, hearing Eames shouting for the others to hurry up. He turned to check on Arthur and his expression turned half exasperated, half angry.

“For God’s sake, Arthur, will you just go!” he cursed before shoving Arthur unceremoniously over the edge.

Thankfully the gravity of this world was still holding true, Arthur thought with a scowl as he grabbed onto the flag pole half-way through his free-fall. He quickly lowered himself to the ground and then hesitated, not willing to move onto the perceived safety of the fortress just yet. Not with the rest of the team still on the other side of the steps.

And then Cobb was jumping over the edge, then Eames and Yusuf, and Saito, ever the gentleman taking last place. Cobb flew past him, diving for cover in the fortress just as the world began to shake, unexpectedly destabilising itself.

Eames reached him next, growling as he grabbed Arthur’s arm and yanked him towards the fortress. Yusuf followed, and Saito, just sliding his way down the flag pole when the music abruptly stopped and the whole world outside of the fortress suddenly collapsed in on itself, like paper being scrunched up.

“ _Saito_!” Arthur cried out, horrified.

But it was too late.

They watched, helplessly, as Saito’s body seemed to crumple in on itself before being sucked down into the nothingness suddenly surrounding them. Only the fortress itself remained intact and standing.

Arthur’s knees weakened and he pressed himself to one of the walls of the small stone fortress they’d found their safety in. Through the open windows and doorways Arthur could see nothing but deceptive blue skies and billowing dust clouds. He swallowed heavily, tasting bile. He was pretty sure that _that_ had never happened in any game of Mario he’d ever played. Not even on Level Eight.

The only sound for a good few minutes was that of their heavy breathing. Arthur bent slightly, head bowed as he tried to slow his heartbeat and resist the urge to empty the contents of his stomach at the same time. There was a ringing in his ears that he couldn’t quite attribute to the silence.

“Damnit,” Cobb’s voice echoed angrily off the walls startling him, “I am not going back down to Limbo for him!”

Arthur looked up at him. The words sounded harsh but if the expression on Cobb’s face was anything to go by, they were said only in reaction to their current predicament and not to be taken too seriously. Yusuf shifted uncomfortably from where he was sitting slumped upon the floor.

“Is he in Limbo, though?” Arthur asked, his voice sounded breathy and distant even to his own ears.

Eames slipped up beside him then, his arm coming up around Arthur’s shoulders and for the first time since entering the dreamscape Arthur let it lie there without complaint. His cautiously leaned his head down to rest upon Eames’ shoulder for just a moment.

“What do you mean?” Eames asked.

“This is Fischer’s dream. And it doesn’t play by any of the rules we’re used to working with, what if—” he trailed off, trying to find the words to explain himself, “—maybe he isn’t dead. Maybe he’s just been taken to another level?”

“Like the shortcut?” Yusuf asked and Arthur nodded.

Eames tightened his arm around Arthur’s shoulders. “Nah, love,” he said softly, “what happened to Saito… it’s what happens to Mario in the game when he runs out of time. The entire world doesn’t disappear in the game, granted, but no one can contort their body the way his did and survive.”

“What about Fischer then?” Arthur pressed on a moment later.

“What about him?”

“Well, where is he for a start? How is he watching us? How did _he_ survive the timer on this world?”

No one had any answers

Straightening up, Arthur took careful stock of their surroundings, determined not to allow anything else unexpected to occur if he could help it.

“Right, well, we’re not going to get any answers hanging around here.” he said, moving away from the wall. Eames stayed where he was. “What have we got?”

“We have one PASIV case,” Yusuf supplied, pointing out the gleaming silver case at his side.

“One of us will need to stay behind to provide a kick,” Eames said and they looked at each other.

“What kind of kick?” Yusuf asked at the same time Arthur said, “How on earth are we supposed to time a kick?” and Cobb added, “Who’s going to stay behind?”

“Ah well, about _how_ to give the kick,” Eames began, smiling slightly, “during my shortcut—” his smile turned slightly sheepish at Arthur’s immediate scowl, “—I did manage to pick up some conveniently placed C4, which we could use to blow up this fortress and kick us back up.”

He pulled out a few packs from his pockets and set them beside the PASIV.

“As for timing, I assume we can give ourselves a kick one level at a time,” he offered. “Once we wake in one level _then_ we give ourselves the kick for the next. I don’t see how we can time it any other way.”

“That would work,” Arthur agreed. “Providing nothing happens on this level - on each level, rather - before we get back to them, we should come out of this relatively unscathed.”

“And for who’s staying behind?” Cobb asked. It was clear that he was _not_ volunteering himself for the job.

Arthur looked at Eames at the same moment the forger looked at him. They looked away almost concurrently, their gazes moving to land on Yusuf instead.

“Well that settles that, then,” Yusuf declared, opening the PASIV and gesturing for them to settle around him.

“We may not need anyone to stay behind,” Arthur said, though he moved to sit beside the PASIV. “If we’re waiting until we’re back before we set a kick then we could all go down to the next level.” He paused. “Couldn’t we?”

“I’d feel safer knowing that someone was watching my body whilst I was under,” Eames commented. “Besides, we may not be entirely safe here.”

“We’ve underestimated this level quite enough already,” Cobb said, darkly.

Eames hummed his agreement, seating himself between Arthur and Yusuf. He pulled out his semi and handed it over to Yusuf. “Just in case.”

Yusuf nodded, checking the safety and setting it aside. He frowned a moment before pulling out the green mushroom he’d stashed in his pocket earlier. He passed it to Eames. “Just in case,” he shrugged and Eames laughed taking the proffered item.

Once the three of them were hooked up, Yusuf gave them all an entirely too-bright smile.

“Try not to have too much fun without me,” he said before pushing the central button and releasing the sedative to take them down to the second level.


	3. Level Two

Arthur woke to the sound of gently lapping water. He blinked his eyes carefully open, squinting against the initial glare of the sun as he rolled himself over and up onto his feet. The ground beneath him was made of rock- a deep, dark brown in colour that stretched out and then up, curving up around them to form the walls of what appeared to be a canyon. Surrounded on three sides by sheer rock, Arthur looked out in the direction he assumed they were to follow in this level and felt a prickling of unease.

He took a few cautionary steps forward, his shoes sinking into soft sand as rock turned to beach which in turn yielded itself to an expanse of murky water.

“Hope you brought your bathing suit,” Eames quipped, cheerfully, moving up beside him.

Arthur shot him a look of distaste. “Surely we can’t be expected to _swim_ this entire level.”

“Why not? Mario had to do it.” Eames’ hands were shoved deep into the pockets of his suit jacket again. Arthur frowned at him.

“We should take it in turns to dive under,” Cobb said. They turned to look at him, seeing that he was already stripping out of his suit. “Anything could be lurking underneath,” he added darkly.

Arthur winced slightly. He was really starting to hate this game.

Beside him, Eames began to strip. With a put upon sigh, Arthur reluctantly began to remove his own suit and shoes. He couldn’t quite bring himself to discard his clothing quite as haphazardly as Eames and Cobb had, and found himself wasting a good minute or two folding his suit and placing his shoes beside it.

Dressed only in a pair of boxers, an undershirt and his shoulder holster, Arthur turned back towards Eames and Cobb. Eames was standing in only a pair of black shorts, his own shoulder holster sans gun now carrying- Arthur squinted- what looked to be the mushroom Yusuf had given him.

“No pockets,” Eames shrugged at the scrutiny. Arthur nodded, turning to Cobb who was similarly attired as him. Cobb nodded at him and then turned to the water, hesitating. The water looked calm. It was just murky enough to hide its depth (and whatever lurked beneath). Cobb stepped in, the water lapping almost encouragingly at his feet.

“It’s pretty warm,” he said, as though it were some kind of consolation. It wasn’t. Arthur remembered playing the water worlds when he was a kid. It was perhaps his least favourite level of all times. He’d rather take on Bowser with his bare fists than step foot into the water before him, water he was more positive than not was swarming with all manner of vile and dangerous creatures intent on ending them.

“Right then,” Eames muttered, before jogging forward and diving straight into the water. Arthur took an involuntary step forward, wincing at the splash as Eames disappeared beneath the surface. He popped up soon after however, treading water, and raising his eyebrows at the pair of them.

Cobb followed next, wading his way into the water, every step swallowing him up bit by bit until he was up to his neck; arms fanning out on either side of him as he kept himself afloat. The look he shot Arthur was more insistent than Eames’ and Arthur felt his stomach knot with dread as he moved quickly forward, trying not to think about whatever was in the water as he felt the sand beneath his clenching toes disappear the further forward he half-stepped, half-swam until he was bobbing up beside Eames and Cobb.

“How’re we going to do this?” he asked, wishing he thought of this _before_ he’d gotten in.

“It’s pretty clear once you break the muck on top,” Eames said, smiling more sedately. He lifted a hand to push back the fringe of hair that slipped forward into his face. “If at least one of us stays under at a time, we can keep a look out for anything _unsavoury_.”

Arthur was in the process of nodding his agreement along with Cobb when he felt something brush up against his leg. He twisted violently in the water, cursing; gun out of his holster before he’d even properly formed the thought to arm himself.

“What is it?” Cobb asked urgently, pulling his own gun out and watching the water warily, head turning this way and that.

“Something touched me,” Arthur gasped out, feeling as though his heart had just taken up permanent lodgings in his throat.

Eames coughed once, lightly, turning sheepish eyes on Arthur. “Ah, that might’ve been me,” he announced, “just wanted to see- um. Never mind.”

“Oh for the love of-!” Arthur re-holstered his gun with jerky motions, fear turning to anger.

“Art—” Eames began. Arthur’s glare cut him off.

“I’ll go first,” Arthur spontaneously announced before diving down. And although he missed it, Eames yelped- loudly- when Arthur grabbed his leg on the way down.

 - - -

Instead of the expected Cheep-Cheeps, which would have been more than enough of a problem for them, they were instead treated to some kind of mutant version with _spines_ and piranha-like _teeth_ and they didn’t just float aimlessly past or wait until you were in their personal space before they did anything about you, oh no, these things attacked on sight. En force!

“Damnit, Eames, stop being such a baby,” unsurprisingly it was Cobb who spoke out against Eames’ bitching as, not even ten minutes into this new level, they’d found themselves swimming for their lives through a shoal of these new and improved mutant-Cheeps.

On the plus side, Arthur observed, their guns worked wondrously well under water.

On the not-so plus side, he lamented, tearing a large strip from the bottom of his undershirt and using it as a make-shift bandage for Eames’ ankle where one of the creatures had tried to rip out a chunk of his flesh, Eames hadn’t had a gun with which to defend himself.

During their mad dash away from the shoal Cobb had noticed that along the walls of the canyon were little ledges. They were barely deep enough to lift themselves up onto, and definitely weren’t frequent enough to harbour any illusions about climbing their way across this level, but they offered some modicum of safety as they regrouped, regained their breaths, and patched up a griping Eames who was more than a little pissed off at all but becoming fish food.

Arthur let his fingers linger on the foot he held in his lap, the make-shift bandage pulled tight and secure. The bite, though plenty deep, didn’t seem to be bleeding as profusely as Arthur had thought it would be. Then again, once they were back in the water…

“Remind me again why I gave Yusuf my gun?” Eames moaned, foot twitching beneath Arthur’s fingers.

“You’re just a regular hero,” Cobb muttered, shifting impatiently.

Eames glared balefully at him. “I’ll remember you said that when _you_ get bitten.”

“How’s the leg?” Arthur hurried to intervene, “It’s not… poisoned, is it?”

“I don’t think so. I can definitely feel it, it just stings like a mother—”

“Right then,” Cobb started, lowering himself off the ledge, “if you’re good to go, we should get moving.”

“You want to go back in there?!” Eames gaped at him. The water had only just stopped frothing with mutant-Cheeps trying to leap up and take a bite out of them.

“We can’t just sit here all day,” Cobb pointed out, his derision clear, “We’re on a timer, in case you forgot.”

“It’s a bit hard to forget, Cobb.” Arthur couldn’t shake the image of Satio’s body just _crushing_ in on itself as they ran out of time. He winced inwardly.

“Then maybe you could think about how much time Ariadne’s already had to spend with that monster?”

“Jesus, Cobb,” Eames pulled his foot from Arthur’s lap. For a brief moment, Arthur panicked that he was about to kick Cobb off the ledge with it. Instead he rotated his ankle, wincing as the muscles pulled and strained at the movement, before finishing with: “You can be a right prick sometimes, I hope you know that.”

Cobb didn’t look even the least bit phased, his expression as firm and stubborn as ever. Arthur pulled out his gun, checked the magazine and winced, outwardly this time.

“I think I saw some of those boxes up ahead.” He shoved the magazine back in, his intentions clear as he looked first at Eames and then at Cobb. They both nodded in silence.

“Right then,” Arthur said, and as one they dropped from their ledge of safety and back into the murky depths below them.

 - - -

Arthur was beginning to think that they would drown in this world long before they made it to the end. They’d been swimming for what felt like hours, sometimes taking turns beneath the water, sometimes with no choice but to hold their breaths for minutes on end as the canyon above them squeezed in on itself forming terrifyingly dark underwater caverns they had no choice but to swim blindly through.

Not a man prone to dramatics, Arthur really didn’t think he was going to last much longer like this. If they weren’t half-drowning from exhaustion or just half-drowning in general, they were ploughing through the water with desperate strokes trying to out swim whatever horror they thought may have been chasing them through the dark. That was just for the creatures they couldn’t see. Arthur was pretty sure he was never going to go swimming again if he made it out of this alive.

The canyon around them finally yawned back open, the sunlight high above them an almost welcome relief after traversing through their _third_ underwater cave.

Arthur’s face fell with dread as he noticed yet _another_ upcoming cave.

“I don’t think I can take much more of this,” Eames muttered, echoing Arthur’s own thoughts. He was breathing deeply and swam low in the water; his mouth disappearing beneath the surface on every downwards bob. Arthur nodded his head in agreement. Even Cobb was looking decidedly worse for wear.

“We haven’t come across anything yet,” Cobb tried, his voice placating. “There may not even be anything in these caves.”

Arthur closed his eyes warily. He couldn’t even bring himself to chew Cobb out for quite probably jinxing them for this next cave.

And then the sunlight started to fade.

The three of them looked worryingly skywards, watching as the sky high above them began to darken with ominous looking clouds.

“I have maybe a half-dozen shots left,” Arthur offered, miserably, expecting to see another Lakitu darting into sight. Eames lifted a spare magazine one of the shimmering boxes had deigned to spit up. Cobb had a fresh magazine already clipped into his own gun.

The sky continued to darken, the water around them turning suddenly choppy, jerking their tired bodies around almost viciously.

“I don’t like this,” Eames said, glaring at everything and nothing in particular.

“There’re some ledges along the wall there—” Cobb pointed to the left side of the canyon.

“We’ll be smashed against them if we go for them,” Arthur warned.

“Better than whatever the hell is about to happen,” Eames reasoned, arms already moving in strong, broad strokes as he dragged himself towards the wall.

The water seemed to get even more violent around them, seeming to pull them back two strokes for every one they made towards the wall, as if trying to pull them towards the centre of the canyon.

Eames reached the wall first, finally, his fingers slippery in their purchase, his face a scrunch of pain as he was shoved bodily against the rock. Cobb arrived several minutes afterwards, his face pale with exertion, limbs trembling as he clung to another ledge, unable to even contemplate trying to pull himself up out of the water.

Arthur grit his teeth, legs kicking hard, arms reaching and fingers stretching as he tried his damndest to reach the side of the canyon.

“Arthur, move your damned arse!” Eames’ yell was almost lost to the sound of water rushing against his ears. He wanted to yell back, ‘ _what do you think I’m doing?_ ’ but he could barely grab enough breath as it was without wasting it on trying to speak.

“Arthur!” Cobb’s voice sounded this time and Arthur felt his adrenaline spike. Something was wrong. Something was terribly wrong. And more than likely behind him and-

He let lose a cry as he felt something take hold of his legs in a sucking hold. He swallowed water in his panic, coughing and struggling against the invisible force holding fast to his kicking legs as it _pulled_ him inch by excruciating inch away from the wall, away from-

“Eame-!” His next cry was lost as his head dipped below the surface momentarily. He came up coughing, his throat burning, his _limbs_ burning with fatigue even through his panic.

He felt himself being spun around, sucked ever closer towards the centre. It took him far too long to realise that there was some kind of whirlpool in progress. He managed to gasp one last breath before he was sucked completely under the water.

The last thing he heard was Eames’ panicked shouting.

 - - -

Like a ragdoll, Arthur was thrown around without care or caution, his body intermittently smashing into what felt like rock as he was dragged forever downwards; spinning and spiralling until he lost all sense of direction, all sense of time. He curled his body into as tight a ball as he could manage and tried to ignore the pain and the terror and the way his lungs were burning so badly, the way his chest was heaving abortively against his refusal to breathe because to breathe was to die and he really, really didn’t want to die.

He felt himself being jerked suddenly to the side, the water around him gathering pressure before erupting like a geyser, and Arthur found himself being launched right up out of the water. He reached his pinnacle with a gasp of glorious, beautiful, fresh air before gravity dragged him back down, slamming his body unceremoniously onto a ground that felt as hard and unforgiving as stone, stealing the breath back from his aching lungs.

Lying prone in a sodden, sandy mess, Arthur could barely do anything more than turn his head to the side and gasp in pant after agonising pant of air. His entire body felt as though it were on fire. There was not one bit of him that didn’t feel abused, that didn’t hurt simply with him thinking about it. He clenched his eyes closed, focussing his thoughts on breathing, just breathing, whilst concurrently willing the turmoil of his emotions back under wraps, and getting a hold of himself enough to roll over onto his back.

He dragged one hand over his face, brushing loose clumps of sand. His face felt hot and raw under the brilliance of the sun after the chilling dark of his journey underwater. His fingers came away sticky and Arthur narrowed his eyes, seeing blood upon his fingertips. He frowned, pushing himself upwards with a groan and touching his fingers back to his head. He located a cut just above his left ear, the wound sticky with congealing blood. He pressed his hand against it, hissing as it flared sharply.

With a frown, Arthur tried to remember when he’d hit his head. He couldn’t. He felt as though he’d just about hit every other part of his body after being sucked through the whirlpool, just not his head, which he’d held protected in his arms for most of the terrifying journey.

He looked around then, turning his neck slowly from side to side, wondering if he’d maybe hit a stone or something after being unceremoniously spat out of the water. Instead, Arthur found himself blinking in disbelief, staggered to find that he could see the fortress they’d been trying to reach just a few breast-strokes ahead of him. Momentarily forgetting the rest of his aches and pains, he moved, standing slowly to his feet and shakily taking in his immediate surroundings.

Arthur found himself standing on what appeared to be some kind of Desert Island. The area around him was thick with golden-brown sand, and though it had hurt terribly when he’d been slammed bodily into it, Arthur found it to be temptingly soft as he dug his toes into its welcoming warmth.

There was a small cluster of palm trees almost directly in the centre of the island, large brown rocks dotted sporadically around them and above those rocks shimmered more of the boxes they kept coming across in the levels. Beyond it all Arthur could see the canyon stretching away from him and assumed it to be the same one he’d been swimming through with Eames and Cobb.

Something lurched in his chest at the thought of them both and he wondered where they were now.

He looked over his shoulder, towards the fortress, and hesitated, wondering if he should make his way there or wait here for the other two. On the one hand the fortress looked dark and foreboding compared to this island paradise he found himself upon. On the other, he suspected that there was no safer place than the fortress on this entire level.

In his hesitation, Arthur noticed movement coming from the other side of the island- small ripples of sand moving in a serpentine motion, growing larger and moving quicker the closer it came to him.

Arthur took a hurried step backwards, throwing himself with a small wince to the right just as a large worm-like creature launched itself from beneath the surface; its sand covered body landing with a crunching sound in the space he’d only seconds ago been standing, before sinking back into the sand and disappearing from sight.

His gun had been in his hand the moment he’d moved, his grip uncommonly tight as he lay there gaping and wide-eyed and watching as the creature sank back beneath the sand. He saw the sand rippling as it moved below the surface before disappearing altogether.

Heart pumping, Arthur carefully pushed himself up onto his knees, movements measured and vigilant as he swept his eyes around his surroundings. Nothing moved. Not even the large fanning leaves on the palm trees. Arthur lifted himself from his knees to his feet, gritting his teeth against the stiffness he felt in his limbs.

He was just reconsidering heading to the fortress when he heard a whisper-soft sound of motion behind him; like the sound of sand running quickly through ones fingers, or, in this case, of it running off the back of the creature once again launching itself out of the sand towards him.

Arthur twisted with a yell, his gun coming up, finger already pulling on the trigger as he sighted the creature and shot. The hit took it right in its gaping maw; rows of splintered teeth going three layers deep snapping suddenly shut as the creature paused, its segmented body shuddering a moment before the head abruptly _exploded_ in a shower of sand and blood and guts.

Arthur fell back, scrambling away from the worst of it, half-coughing and half-retching at the stench that rose up from what had moments ago been a head. Warily, he watched as the rest of the creature’s segmented body wavered, as if undecided, before crashing to the sand in a coiled heap. Too tense to feel even a transitory satisfaction, Arthur instead shuffled forward again, gun aimed and ready as he approached the body with caution.

Upon closer inspection he noticed that it wasn’t quite like a worm after all. The creature’s body seemed to be composed of five spherical segments without the head, with each segment only tentatively attached to the other by what appeared to be a thick glue-like substance. It was this substance that gave the creature its colour, sticking to the sand around it and coating itself in chunky clumps of the stuff.

The body before him shuddered then and Arthur cursed aloud, scrambling backwards once more as a spasm seemed to run through each individual segment before the one closest to where the head had been split itself open with a small _popping_ sound to reveal-

“You have got to be kidding me,” Arthur breathed out, bringing his gun up to bear as the topmost segment of the creature’s body morphed itself into a head; large black eyes blinking slowly awake just as the slit of a mouth began to rip its way open, revealing the same splintered tooth smile he’d seen on the initial one.

Not wasting a second more, Arthur took no pains in shooting this second head square through its beady eyes, watching as it exploded in a repetitive shower of sand and blood and guts.

Four shots left. Maybe. If he’d had six left to begin with, that is. He considered shooting the rest of the segments, just in case, but the thought of wasting what remained of his ammo stayed his hand. There had to be another way to kill this thing.

A whisper of sand sounded then and Arthur stilled, turning his attention on the unmoving body of the creature before him. The sound came again, but not from in front of him. His entire body tensed itself and he hardly dared to breathe as he turned his head slowly to his left side where the sand had parted ways enough to show him another sadistically smiling head slowly rising up from beneath the sand.

They watched each other. Arthur’s fingers flexed against their grip on his gun, his index finger moving cautiously to press against the trigger. He moved slowly, bringing his gun-hand up, preparing to swing round and shoot but, sensing the movement, the creature snapped its splintered teeth at him and launched itself with unexpected speed from the sand towards him.

Arthur wrenched himself around, gun coming up and firing wildly as the creature bore down upon him, crushing his legs even as it went straight for his head; teeth snapping just inches from his face as Arthur raised his hands, grabbing the creature between segments and holding it as far away from his face as he could manage. He could smell something very akin to putrefied flesh as the creature hissed its breath over him and he gagged.

His gun was pointed skywards now, his grip on the creature too tentative to think about loosening his hold enough to turn the gun and shoot it right through its hideous head. His arms were already shaking with the effort to hold it even an inch or two away from his face.

And then an almost familiar _popping_ sounded from the original creature and Arthur found himself groaning with anger and frustration as he dared to take his eyes from the one in front of him to see again the morphing of body to head and the slow smile of teeth stretching across the first creature’s newly formed head.

“Goddamnit!” He cursed, thrashing his body against the creature atop him and adjusting his tentative hold around its- for lack of a better word- _neck_. He managed to stretch his arms out a little more for his efforts, locking the elbow of his left arm and all but clenching his eyes shut in a silent prayer as, without a choice, he loosened the hold of his right arm enough to bring his gun hand down. Using the ground to steady his aim, Arthur fired again at the first creature, turning his face from the spray of its explosion whilst simultaneously brining his gun hand back up and pointing it almost directly into the other creature’s mouth.

“Eat this,” Arthur spat before pulling the trigger with a grimace.

Instead of the expected explosion the gun clicked against the shot.

The magazine was empty.

“Oh,” he breathed, body going cold with sudden dread.

 - - -

“Arthur!” Eames’ shouted again, watching helplessly as Arthur was sucked beneath the churning water. And then Eames did something infinitely stupid and reckless as he let his fingers give up their already tentative hold on the canyon wall, dropping his body back into the wild waters.

“Eames!” Cobb’s shout went ignored as Eames resurfaced from the drop, and prepared to launch himself away from the walls, determined to follow Arthur wherever the hell he was being taken.

Something slipped around his neck just as he pushed off, choking him and pulling him back against the wall. He lifted frantic hands, fingers squeezing at the flesh of an arm slung around his neck- holding him back and away from the whirlpool before him.

“Cobb,” Eames all but growled, digging his fingers into the arm holding him. He thrashed his body, trying to loosen either Cobb’s hold on him or on the wall, whatever was going to get him into the whirlpool. He cursed, choking on water as it splashed fierce waves against them. 

And then, as quickly as everything had started, it stopped.

The whirlpool before them seemed to suck _itself_ down, disappearing with nary a trace seconds later. The sky above them cleared, the waters calming to a gentle lapping, and Cobb finally released Eames. He was rewarded for his efforts with a glancing punch to his temple as Eames twisted himself around in the water, lashing out as he turned.

“What the fuck was that?” Eames shouted, pushing himself up into Cobb’s space, his face apoplectic as he spat the words into Cobb’s equally enraged face.

Cobb dropped himself back into the water, shoving his arms out and pushing Eames away from him.

“What the hell were you thinking?” Cobb cursed back, a stain of red rage high on his cheeks.

“Me?” Eames gaped at him, “Did you miss the part where Arthur was just sucked down into a whirlpool?”

“Did _you_?” Cobb demanded, pressing on before Eames could formulate a reply. “You don’t know what the hell that thing was or where it took him!”

If possible, Eames seemed to get even more irate at Cobb’s words.

“Which is why,” he began slowly, fighting for a calm he in no way felt, “I was tying to get to Arthur. To get him the hell out of it. You remember Arthur, don’t you, Cobb? Your best friend? The best friend you just possibly sent to his death and _worse_?”

It was low blow, but Eames couldn’t deny the sadistic pleasure he felt at seeing the spark of regret lighting Cobb’s gaze further.

“Or is it just Ariadne you care about now?” Eames finished, his gaze burning into Cobb’s and seeing as his entire face flushed an angry red.

“Don’t you dare,” he coughed, his voice hoarse. “Arthur’s my best friend—”

“—yeah, he’s your best friend so much you didn’t even tell him Ariadne was meant to be visiting with you this week.”

Cobb gaped at him. Eames’ smile was almost malicious, “You’re not the only one our dear Ari likes to chat with, Cobb.”

“It’s not like that,” Cobb hissed, fingers curling into fists beneath the water.

“No?” Eames asked, “So you _wouldn’t_ have thrown yourself in after her if she’d been in Arthur’s place?”

“Of course I-!” Cobb cut himself off, slamming at the water and sending up a spray between them.

“I thought so.” Eames said. He swam away from Cobb, moving towards the middle of the canyon and diving down beneath the now-still waters. He resurfaced a couple minutes later, spitting water and curses, before diving back down again.

“What are you doing?” Cobb asked, watching reluctantly as Eames resurfaced a second time.

“What does it look like?” He scowled.

“Eames—”

“I’m going to do everything in my power to get to Arthur.” He bit out, glaring at Cobb.

“Eames, he’s gone—” Cobb tried.

Eames rounded on him. “If I have to stay here until that damned timer runs out waiting for that whirlpool to come back, I will. Don’t think I won’t do it, Cobb. Don’t.”

“You can’t!” Cobb spat and Eames glared at him.

“Can’t I?”

“Damnit, Eames. We’ll get Arthur back.” Cobb kicked his legs out, swimming towards him.

As if that was any kind of consolation to him right now. He wondered if this was how Arthur felt when he’d slipped down into that pipe. Wondered if Arthur felt the same dread broiling through his body, the fear and the doubt and the _sickness_ at not knowing where he was.

“We’ll get him back,” Cobb repeated, and Eames almost felt himself deflate at the conviction in his tone, only for Cobb to then ruin his own words by speaking again. “If he’s not at the end of this level then we’ll find him in Limbo. We should get moving—”

“Let me just make one thing very clear to you, Cobb,” Eames hissed, rounding on him. “If it comes down to a decision between you and Arthur, it is always- _always_ \- going to be Arthur.”

Cobb stared at him, not exactly surprised. “It’s not,” he said a moment later.

“What?”

“It’s not a decision between Arthur and me. It’s between Arthur and Ariadne.” Cobb found himself not-quite able to enjoy the pained look that flashed across Eames’ face at his words.

“I love Ariadne,” Eames finally said, dragging the words out as if pained, “I really do, but,” he hesitated a long moment before meeting Cobb’s eyes square on, his voice softer when he next spoke. “I’m not waking up without Arthur.”

Cobb found himself unable to hide his surprise at that admission. They stared at each other, tense, waiting.

“How long?” Cobb finally asked, swallowing heavily around the words.

Eames clenched his jaw a moment, gaze flickering away and then back as he came to a decision. “Long enough.”

“I- I didn’t know,” Cobb admitted.

“You weren’t meant to,” Eames said. He felt his anger leaking from him, leaving him weary and aching and feeling more than a little bit lost. “You know how Arthur can be. You had a lot on your plate and he was adamant about maintaining a level of professionalism whenever we were working together. There just never seemed to be a right time, you know?”

“Eames- I’m sorry.” Cobb looked just as miserable as he felt.

“Yeah.” Eames shrugged. “Look, you’d better go ahead.”

And just like that whatever moment they were having was gone. Cobb pursed his lips.

“What happens when we reach the fortress?” he asked tightly.

“If we get there before you, we’ll wait for the timer on this level to run out before going down.”

“And what if I’m first? Am I supposed to wait for you? What if you two don’t make it? Someone needs to stay behind…”

“I am not having this conversation with you, Cobb.” Eames growled. “You can either stay here with me and help me find Arthur, or you can bugger off and make your own way to the end. Either way I’m not leaving.”

“What happened to your sense of self-preservation?” Cobb needled.

Eames flashed him a toothy smile then, one that didn’t quite reach his eyes as the sky above them began to darken once again. “Oh, don’t you worry about that.” He promised before diving down beneath the now choppy waters.

With a curse, Cobb dived under too. But not to follow, choosing instead to take his chances with cave number four before the full force of the rejuvenated whirlpool could suck him under with Eames.

\- - -

Eames’ journey through the whirlpool was just as treacherous and terrifying as Arthur’s had been and come the end of it he was both exultant at being able to breathe once again and annoyed when that one simple pleasure was immediately taken away from him when he was thrown callously upon the island; his head planting itself face-first into the sand beneath him.

Groaning and grouching, Eames shoved himself angrily up, choosing to ignore the way his entire body felt like it was about to give up on him and instead focussed all his energy on scrubbing the sand from his eyes and mouth, before then scanning the area around him.

“Arthur!” He shouted without preamble, pushing himself into a run as he caught sight of the other man up ahead, thrashing about in the sand with a… a… _something_ bearing down upon him.

His running came to a staggering halt as the creature- a Pokey, he decided- whipped its gnashing head around to face him, its segmented body tailing angrily in the sand.

“Eames…” Arthur’s voice was strained, coming through to him from behind clenched teeth, his face red and sweat slicked with exhaustion. Eames could see the way his arms shook violently with the effort of holding the creature away from him.

“Gun,” he gritted out then, his head jerking a fraction to the side, his eyes never leaving the creature, and Eames’ own gaze zeroed in on the glock lying just inches from Arthur’s head.

“‘S empty,” Arthur pressed on, voice cracking and Eames cursed before a sudden thought hit him and he groped frantically against his shoulder holster, fingers blindly probing a moment before-

“Aha!” he cried in triumph. The Pokey’s head turned back towards him, its teeth snapping together in a bite before it looked back to Arthur and then to him once more as if unsure who to go for- whether it should let loose the prey already caught or pursue the fresh target.

“Arthur, I’m going to distract it,” Eames called, ignoring Arthur’s half-gasped ‘ _don’t be stupid_ ’ and throwing the fresh magazine of ammo he’d stuffed in beside the mushroom in his gun holster towards Arthur. It landed with a soft thump close beside the gun and the Pokey growled, eyeing first the magazine and then Arthur before slowly turning it beady-eyed gaze back to Eames.

Arthur looked at Eames for the first time then, his eyes sliding from the creature in front of him to the fresh magazine and then to stare at Eames with such intense relief that Eames wanted to throw all caution to the wind and tackle the creature right off of him that very second. He held himself in agitated check however, not wanting to risk any further harm to Arthur.

“Come on!” Eames called stepping forward and then backwards, he moved himself in a slow arc behind the creature, watching as its lower body thrashed angrily in the sand, its beady eyes trying to keep both him and Arthur in sight.

“Come _on_ you bugger!” Eames shouted, clapping his hands to add noise to his distraction. He could see Arthur biting his lip against the Pokey’s jerky movement, trying to remain quiet and keep his hold.

“Eames!” Arthur suddenly cried out and Eames took his eyes off the Pokey for a second to see Arthur staring at the body of one Eames had assumed he’d previously dealt with, except it was _moving_ and Eames cursed as the side of the body nearest Arthur suddenly _popped_ itself into a new head.

“What the-!”

Eames’ distraction was all the creature atop Arthur needed to decide to attack him now. And thankfully for Eames, the Pokey attacking him was exactly what he’d needed in order to let Arthur get to his gun, load the magazine and shoot the damn thing in its face.

Or rather, to shoot _both_ these damn things in their damn ugly faces.

The Pokey landed on him with a snarl, planting itself square on Eames’ chest and crushing the air right out of his lungs. He barely got his arms up in time to prevent a face full of teeth. The Pokey gnashed it teeth at him and Eames’ felt himself gagging at the stench emitting from the creatures mouth.

“Arthur,” he ground out, torn between trying to breathe through the weight crushing his chest and not wanting to breathe at all least he taste the creature’s rotting breath on his tongue. “Any time now would be much appreciated!”

He heard three shots fired in quick succession and then one loud, wet bursting sound. He heard Arthur’s footsteps upon sand even over the sound of the Pokey’s snarling and the thrum of blood rushing in his own ears. He saw Arthur’s bare legs in his peripheral before another, single shot was fired and Eames watched, with some amount of fascination, as the Pokey shuddered at the impact of the bullet lodging itself in its face before it finally, finally exploded; it head bursting open like rotten fruit to spew its warm and soggy insides all over him. Its headless body wavered a moment before Arthur kicked out at it, sending it toppling to the side and allowing Eames to drag himself out from beneath it. As soon as he was clear, Arthur resumed shooting every single segment of the creature that remained.

Eames looked at him. Arthur’s eyes were wide, wild even, his gun arm outstretched but shaking as he finished firing on the creature. He lowered his arm when finished, his chest heaving with exertion and adrenaline.

“Arthur,” Eames called softly and Arthur turned his gaze to him again, his eyes softening slightly before his legs gave out and he slumped heavily to the sandy ground, his gun slipping from suddenly slack fingers.

Eames hurried to his side, his hands touching frantically at Arthur’s face, his arms, chest, everywhere he could reach; trying to make sure Arthur was okay.

“‘M fine,” he slurred, smiling shakily as he lifted an arm to touch at the hand Eames had rested against his cheek. “Just tired.”

Eames leant in, brushing his lips dryly across Arthur’s mouth before pressing their foreheads together. Arthur’s fingers tightened around his hand and Eames closed his eyes, content to spend even an instant just breathing with Arthur.

After a while Arthur sighed, shifting, and Eames opened his eyes to meet Arthur’s gaze.

“Help me to the water?” he asked, grimacing as he used his free hand to pluck distastefully at the ruined undershirt he wore; it was ripped and bloodied and stained beyond all hope of salvaging. Though still intact, his underpants appeared to be in a similar state. It wasn’t just his clothing that looked more than a little worse for wear, Eames noted, Arthur’s entire body was slicked up with whatever the Pokey’s had sprayed all over him, thick clumps of sand sticking to him, as well as-

“Is that blood?” Eames asked, after having helped Arthur to his feet and secured his gun back in its holster. He turned Arthur’s head carefully to the side, seeing the dark crust of blood coating his hair and the top of his ear.

“A little. It’s alright though,” Arthur answered. He held willingly onto Eames’ arm, his fingers squeezing reassuringly as he tilted his head towards the water where the whirlpool was in the process of disappearing.

Eames frowned, worried, but led Arthur to the edge of the beach, helping him to sit in the seawater when they were a couple inches into it. He didn’t offer to help as Arthur shucked his shoulder holster and undershirt, but he did offer to hold Arthur’s gun as he tore a strip off his undershirt and proceeded to use it to wash the grime off the rest of his body.

“Thank you,” Arthur said after a moment, looking up to find Eames’ gaze intent upon him.

“You’d have done the same for me,” Eames allowed.

Arthur dropped his eyes, his fingers digging into the wet sand at his sides. “I tried—” he started then stopped, hesitating a minute before starting again. “I did try to follow you.”

“I know,” he agreed, his gaze still too intent.

“I’m surprised Cobb let you follow me,” Arthur said looking away.

“Hmm,” Eames hummed, then, “Cobb didn’t have a say in the matter of me following you.”

Arthur frowned at his words.

“He tried,” Eames admitted. “I told him in a toss up between the two of you—”

“Oh, Eames,” Arthur looked up again. “Tell me you didn’t?”

“You missed a spot,” Eames said instead, motioning towards the cut on the side of his head. He didn’t wait for Arthur to do anything about it, instead he plucked the strip of undershirt from Arthur’s fingers and carefully touched it against the congealed blood, cleaning it away.

“Well?” Arthur prompted when Eames remained resolutely silent.

“I’m here, aren’t I?” Was all Eames said.

Arthur frowned again, lifting his hand to catch Eames’ when it became apparent that Eames was finished and just trying to prolong the distraction. He tugged the cloth from Eames’ fingers.

“He won’t be happy,” Arthur warned.

“That’s his problem then, isn’t it?” Eames sighed at Arthur’s continued frown. “I wasn’t going to just leave you here, Arthur. Wherever here was.”

“Anything could have happened to me, Eames. What if the whirlpool had killed me? You’d be dead too for following.”

“But it didn’t,” Eames said.

“But it could have. And then that _thing_ … if you’d been a second later we’d both be dead and useless to Cobb.”

“I don’t care about, Cobb.” At Arthur’s pointed look Eames huffed and clarified. “I don’t care about him as much as you.”

Arthur pursed his lips. “We should be treating this like any other job—”

Eames took hold of Arthur’s hands then, pulling him in for a quick, closed-mouth kiss. “This isn’t any other job,” he breathed against Arthur’s lips.

“Eames,” Arthur sighed, but he kissed back, once.

“I’m not waking up without you, Arthur,” Eames breathed, tensing as he felt Arthur freeze, his mouth moving away. He held fast to Arthur’s hands, keeping him from pulling away altogether.

“Eames you—” Arthur turned his head to the side, looking away.

“Arthur,” Eames’ voice was insistent enough to draw Arthur’s gaze back towards him.

“You can’t—” Arthur shook his head. “This isn’t one of your trashy romance novels, Eames.” He gave a half-laugh though it was entirely without humour.

Eames squeezed at his hands, encouraging Arthur to continue.

“If anything happened to me here, or on any job,” he met Eames’ eyes, “I’d want you to wake up. Without me.”

“I’d want you to do the same,” he agreed. Arthur raised an eyebrow and Eames’ grinned widely at him. “Doesn’t mean either of us are going to do it though.”

Arthur opened his mouth to reply to that but found himself smiling instead. He scowled, trying to force his lips into a disapproving line but Eames’ own smile only grew and Arthur found it hard to force a displeasure he wasn’t entirely feeling. He sighed, exasperated but smiling.

“What am I to do with you, Mr. Eames?” he huffed when Eames laughed outright.

“I can think of a few things,” he answered with waggling eyebrows. Arthur smacked feebly at his arm.

“Yes, me too,” Arthur agreed, his voice dry. “The first of which is you helping me out of the water before the whirlpool returns.”

“You spoil all my fun, Arthur,” Eames moaned, but he was already pushing to his feet and holding his hands out to Arthur.

 - - -

After much debate, Arthur had relocated them both to the other side of the island, deciding to watch the mouth of the canyon in wait of Cobb instead of taking up residence in the fortress. After a quick sweep of the rest of the island for any hidden dangers, Eames had agreed, more than happy to sit on the beach with Arthur sprawled out beside him.

They sat beneath the cluster of palm trees now, the large leaves above them protecting them from the worst of the sun’s glare. Eames had his back against one of the trees with Arthur pressed up against his side, his body a reassuring weight against Eames’ chest. He had one arm curled loosely around Arthur’s waist, his fingers lazily playing with one of Arthur’s hands.

“Do you think he’s alright?” Arthur murmured sometime after they’d settled, his eyes not having left the entrance to the canyon a moment since they sat.

“Hmmm,” Eames hummed his agreement, turning his head to kiss at Arthur’s temple. “Cobb’s too stubborn to not be.”

“Stop that,” Arthur muttered, squeezing at his hand.

“Stop what?” Eames asked, amused.

“Eames this isn’t the time or the place—” Arthur groused.

“We’re not doing anything,” he replied innocently. Arthur pursed his lips.

“What’re you thinking?” Eames asked after a long stretched out silence.

“I don’t… it just feels wrong being together like this when Cobb is who knows where and Ariadne is stuck with that creature and Satio is in Limbo and—”

“—hey,” Eames interrupted, tightening his arm. “Hey,” he said again, “it’s all going to work out, Arthur.”

“You can’t know that.” Arthur said.

“No, I can’t. But if it doesn’t, knowing that we had even this as our last moment together will be enough for me.”

Arthur tensed up against him.

“You can have this, you know?” Eames said, softly.

Arthur’s silence was almost as loud as any verbal denial he could have made in response to Eames’ words. Just as Eames was preparing to loosen his arms and give Arthur the option of moving away, Arthur unexpectedly turned his head towards him, face tilting upwards to press a kiss to the corner of his mouth.

Eames smiled, turning to face Arthur properly. When Arthur didn’t drop his gaze, or move away as he’d expected, Eames made to press his mouth more fully against Arthur’s; their lips soft and wet as they moved lightly against each other.

_Pop._

Arthur pulled away first, frowning. “Did you hear—”

 __  
Pop. Pop-pop-pop…  


He jerked himself out of Eames’ arms entirely as a cacophony of popping noises sounded. His initial reaction to the sound was to draw his glock, his eyes sweeping back and forth as he pushed to his feet, trying to find the source of the sound and praying desperately it wasn’t another one of those _Pokey’s_ , as Eames had called them.

It wasn’t. Arthur’s relief was short lived however when Eames called his name, stepping towards the water which had begun to froth up, large squid-like organisms _popping_ into existence before their eyes.

“Bloopers,” Eames said, his distaste evident.

“What?” Arthur asked, tearing his eyes away from them to look at Eames.

“Oh shit,” Eames cursed a second later, lifting his arm to point towards the canyon where- Arthur turned, his eyes widening- Cobb could be seen swimming towards them.

“Cobb!” Arthur shouted, waving his arms and trying to get his attention. Cobb must’ve seen them because he paused, waving an arm back towards them.

“Cobb- go around!” Eames shouted, trying to gesture that Cobb should avoid the direct route towards them. Cobb waved again before diving beneath the waters, uncomprehending.

“He’s going to swim right into them!” Arthur said, horrified. Watching as the squid- or Bloopers, whatever they were called- dipped below the surface, fanning out around the island as if sensing the approach of their prey.

“Shoot them!” Eames yelled towards him then, his hands fisting uselessly at his sides.

“I can’t,” Arthur said, biting his lip in frustration. They both knew that Cobb could be anywhere beneath the waters and that even one stray bullet could put an end to him.

There was a sudden agitation to the water and they both watched, dismayed, as the Bloopers seemed to converge as one on something thrashing under the frothed surface.

“Cobb!” Arthur yelled, taking an unthinking step towards the edge of the beach, needing to do something, _anything_ , to help his friend. Eames grabbed at his arm, his fingers too tight but squeezing brief sense back into him. He turned frantic eyes on Eames, and then… his eyes slid away from Eames, to a point over his shoulder.

“The cubes!” He shouted suddenly, pulling away and running towards the shimmering boxes they’d neglected to touch in the initial sweep of the island.

Eames followed suit, diving towards the first of the boxes and punching it square and centre. It shimmered a moment before spitting out a bundle of C4. He cursed, though of course happy to find something useful, it wasn’t the kind of useful they needed for this situation.

Arthur had cracked open two of the six boxes, revealing a fresh magazine in one box but nothing in the other. Eames hurried to his second box, yelling with triumph as it spat forth a shimmering star. He leapt towards it, grabbing it in his right hand and setting off in a sprint towards the water, not even pausing to wait as it spewed its contents all over him.

He was in the water a second later, diving towards the seething mass of Bloopers. He swam straight into them, trusting the star to work the same here as in the game as he reached out, ripping the creatures away from Cobb’s body. The Bloopers reared away from his touch, their grasping tentacles withering up into their milky bodies before they popped right back out of existence.

Reaching Cobb, Eames hooked an arm around his shoulders, pulling his seizing body towards him and kicking out, swimming as quickly towards the surface as he could manage with the added weight. He felt sand scraping at his knees and pushed himself into a stand, twisting his body to hook his hands beneath Cobb’s arms and dragging him from the water.

Arthur was at his side in seconds, helping to pull Cobb the rest of the way out and aiding him into a seated position, smacking at his back and forcing him to cough the water from his choking lungs. His body jerked, seizing with the poison of multiple stings.

“Can’t—” Cobb’s voice was strangled, “move.”

The words were a struggle to spit out, and Arthur watched with a growing fear as Cobb’s body slowly stopped moving all together. It started with his legs, the stillness creeping up the length of them, crawling over his lower body and paralysing him as it went.

“If it reaches his lungs—” Eames breathed, trying not to look at Cobb’s face and the clear panic there.

“The mushroom!” Arthur snapped all of a sudden, shifting his hold on Cobb and staring imploringly at Eames who wasted no time in scrabbling at his shoulder holster and pulling from it the green mushroom Yusuf had gifted him; its spotted body a bit sodden and looking a little worse for wear.

Arthur didn’t care how it looked as he snatched it from Eames’ hand and began tearing into it, grabbing small pieces and pushing them between Cobb’s lips bit by bit.

“Chew, Dom,” he breathed, but he could see the struggle it took to him to move his mouth as the paralytic began moving further up his body. Eames reached over, massaging at Cobb’s throat and coaxing him into a half-choked swallow.

“That’s it,” Arthur encouraged, “come on, Dom. You can do this.”

He continued feeding his small pieces and Eames helped him to swallow, but as fast as they worked it just didn’t seem to be fast enough and soon Cobb was gasping for air, his chest heaving, straining for breath before freezing altogether. His eyes widened, his mouth opening on a silent scream before his body started seizing with renewed effort.

“NO!” Arthur cried out. Eames’ hand found his, his other touching at Cobb’s shoulder and watching, useless, as he finally slumped in Arthur’s arms, his head lolling to the side.

They sat there unmoving, silent except for the sounds of their heavy breathing.

Arthur’s grip on Eames’ hand was painfully tight but Eames didn’t pull away, not even when he helped Arthur to lower Cobb’s body to the beach.

“We’ll get him back,” Eames tried and Arthur nodded, a muttered ‘I know’ passing his lips as he continued to stare at Cobb.

“Arthur—”

“I said I know!” Arthur snapped, tugging angrily at his hand. Eames kept his hold, using it to pull Arthur towards him and enveloping him in a one armed hug over Cobb’s body. Arthur struggled against him, his face pressing into Eames’ neck even as he tried to push ineffectually at his chest with his free hand.

A cough sounded from between them and they both froze.

“Get a room,” wheezed a voice and Arthur jerked himself almost violently from Eames’ releasing arms as they turned quickly to see Cobb blinking blearily up at them.

Arthur smiled brightly at him, one hand moving to grasp at his shoulder, reassuring himself that Cobb was actually still there and breathing and _alive_.

“Don’t kiss me,” Cobb joked, weakly, and Eames laughed in shock both at the words and the fact that Cobb had actually just made a joke. Arthur was smiling so hard his dimples were showing and Eames reached over, unable to resist pulling Arthur towards him and kissing his cheek.

Cobb rolled his eyes at Eames’ actions but he was smiling with a look of apologetic fondness Eames would never have expected to see directed at him. Not from Cobb anyway.

“You should probably finish this,” he coughed, picking up what remained of the mushroom and brushing the sand off from where it had landed on the beach.

“Yeah,” Cobb agreed, letting Arthur help him up again. He took the mushroom and fed himself this time, taking small cautious bites and swallowing distastefully against its sogginess.

They waited patiently for Cobb to finish and then longer still as they waited for his strength to return enough to let him move his entire body once more. While they lingered, Eames retrieved the ammo and C4 from the shimmering boxes and smashed open the remaining ones only to find them empty.

When Eames returned, Cobb was announcing himself fit and ready to continue moving on. The look he shot Eames and Arthur when they both pointedly stared at the cuts lashed up his legs and the way his entire body trembled with just the effort of sitting up, was pure, stubborn Cobb. Eames watched as Arthur shook his head but helped him to stand anyway.

They made their slow way across the island, waited for the whirlpool to disperse once again, and then swam the short distance between the island and the fortress, Cobb floating between them. It was almost a relief when they made their way out of the water, passing the lone flagpole and stepping into the coolness of the stone fortress which signified the end of the level.

They blinked against the initial darkness, waiting for their eyes to adjust to the change of light before moving further inside. Arthur helped Cobb to sit down beside the PASIV lying in the middle of the room. He slumped a little, breathing heavily and sweating with the exertion of the move.

“Okay?” Arthur asked, voice soft enough to give the allusion of privacy.

Cobb nodded. “I’ll be fine in the next level,” Cobb assured him, then, “are you okay?”

“Me?” Arthur asked, confused.

“I didn’t expect to see you, either of you, after what happened in the canyon.”

Arthur grimaced. “I wouldn’t recommend it as a shortcut,” he agreed.

Eames moved to kneel beside them then, putting down the C4 and magazine he’d collected on the island and placing them beside the PASIV. He touched at Arthur’s shoulder.

“Keep the ammo,” Arthur said, slanting him a look as he opened the case and carefully unrolled the tubes. “I’ll only need the explosives.”

“You sure?” Eames asked, watching him curiously. He was also asking about Arthur’s unspoken agreement to stay behind in this level.

“I’ll be fine.” Arthur agreed, letting Cobb take and affix his own needle before turning to Eames who offered Arthur his wrist without further comment. Arthur’s fingers were cold against his skin, but gentle, as he inserted the needle and taped it in place. His hand lingered in a hold as he reached to depress the button in the middle of the case.

“Just… try not to kill yourselves, or each other,” Arthur said, quirking a worried smile at them both. “And bring Ariadne back safely,” he said, his hand still hesitating. “And don’t forget to fetch Satio either.”

“Arthur…” Cobb huffed and Arthur pursed his lips a moment before pressing at the button and releasing the sedative. Before they fell under, Eames twisted his hand in Arthur’s hold and curled their fingers together, his encouraging smile slackening soon after as sleep took hold.


	4. Level Three

“Marvellous,” Eames commented upon waking in the third level to find themselves in a dungeon type setting, with grey stone walls surrounding them on three sides and a shadowed walkway stretching out ahead of them. The air was thick and broiling, and Eames felt sweat prickling at his skin almost instantly upon waking. Trepidation too, as he considered the similarities between this level of the dream and world eight of the game.

Beside him, Cobb was pulling at his collar and rolling his shirt sleeves, his jacket already shucked as he too felt the heat. They spared each other a brief look before wordlessly pushing to their feet and starting down the only path available to them. 

The hallway before them stretched ever onwards, the flickering torches lining the walls their only light to see by. They came across nothing else: no creatures, no obstacles, just a continuous stretch of stone that echoed against their footsteps.

Eames didn’t know whether to be thankful or worried after the first fifteen or so minutes passed without so much as a hiccup. As with levels one and two, this one also seemed to be leading them into a false sense of security and Eames didn’t like the thought of just what they would end up facing when they made it further into the level.

He thought of the Goomba and Lakitu they’d run into on the first level, and then the Cheep-Cheep, Pokeys and Bloopers they’d faced off against in the second. If his instincts were to be trusted Eames supposed they could be facing anything from fire snakes to skeleton creatures to boiling pits of lava, all of which he suspected would be immune to the bullets they had as their only defence.

He looked briefly at Cobb who was all but power-walking his way through the passageway, his gaze intent and fixed on a point ahead of them, seeming none the worse for wear after his near-death experience up on Level Two. Thinking about the previous level however and how he’d just left things with Cobb put a sour taste in his mouth. He didn’t for one minute regret abandoning him in pursuit of Arthur, but he’d known Cobb for a while now and he supposed a better explanation of events wouldn’t go amiss.

He chanced another glance towards Cobb, wondering if the pinched look on his face was from worry or a sign of fatigue carried over from the last level.

“Look,” Eames started, uncomfortable with the persistent silence between them. “About what happened back in that canyon—”

“It’s fine,” Cobb interrupted, almost too quickly, not so much as missing a step as they hurried on through the dungeon setting.

“Right,” Eames said shortly, his lips pressed tightly together. Cobb could be an interesting guy to work with sometimes, if only for the fact that his sheer stubbornness and allusions of charm usually saw them through the particularly nasty jobs they’d oft times found themselves on together. Trying to hold a conversation with the guy, however, when unrelated to a job, was like trying to pull teeth, and Eames wondered not for the first time how Arthur had willingly chosen to follow this man around the world even before Mal’s untimely death.

“You were right,” Cobb suddenly said. Eames shot him a quick look but Cobb was still staring straight ahead.

“Oh?” He asked, leadingly, watching as Cobb scowled at nothing in particular.

“I’d have done the same. If it were Ariadne.” He answered, frowning at himself

“I see,” Eames dragged the words out, sure that they both already knew this, at least insofar as dreaming was concerned.

He saw Cobb hesitate a moment before he turned his head enough to meet Eames’ eyes. “I’m glad you went after him,” he said. His sincerity was surprising.

Eames looked at him a long moment before dipping his head in acknowledgement.

“Me too,” Eames agreed. It was as much of an apology for the words they’d exchanged back in the canyon as either of them was ever likely to get. Just remembering what had happened to Arthur, and what _could_ have happened to him if he hadn’t shown up when he did, well, it just didn’t bear thinking about. Worse still was the thought of what would have happened to Cobb and himself had Eames chosen not to go after Arthur.

“Damned stupid place to stick a star-box,” Eames muttered then, thinking about the item that had allowed him to jump into the Blooper-infested waters. The change of subject was gratefully accepted if the look on Cobb’s face was anything to go by.

“Star-box?” he questioned.

“You remember the bouncing star in level one?” Cobb nodded. “There was one of them on the island. They work a bit like a full-body shield. It’s how I managed to get you out of the water without getting stung myself.”

“Thanks for that, by the way,” Cobb said, his tone somewhat curious.

Eames waved him off. “What happened after I left you?” he asked instead, not wanting to pursue the inevitable line of questioning. He’d only jumped in after him to stop Arthur from doing it sans-star. He was pretty sure they both knew that too.

“It turns out there was something in those caves, after all.” Cobb muttered darkly, thinking momentarily of the Unagi-eels that had chased him through the next three caves, nipping at his heels with fervour. He thought too of the shoal of Cheep-Cheep that had been waiting for him after he’d emerged from cave number six, half delirious with exhaustion and terror, and how he’d somehow found the strength to out-swim the lot of them. And then, as if that hadn’t been enough, he’d swum straight into and almost been killed by a school of squid.

Eames winced, sympathetically. Knowing what he’d faced on the island with Arthur, Eames could well imagine just what Cobb had had to put up with in the water.

“You ever get the feeling that maybe we aren’t supposed to come out of this thing alive?” Cobb asked after a moment. It felt as though they’d been walking the same passageway for hours now; the monotonous walls broken only with intervals of flaming torches.

“Not exactly,” Eames began, “I think this is just as much of a challenge as both the game it’s based on and the Inception we put Fischer through.”

“We’re down to two men, Eames. And with the stuff we’ve had to go through? Even you have to admit the Inception job looks like a cakewalk in comparison to this!”

“Four men,” Eames corrected, “and from Fischer’s point of view, I suspect this is just as dangerous as his experiences in the Inception job were. Remember we kidnapped him first, _twice_ , and then terrorized the life out of him, turned him against his godfather, got him shot, threw him off a building, nearly drowned him—”

“—yeah, okay. I get it,” Cobb muttered. “We still had Ariadne and Saito come the third level though.”

“But Saito was dying,” Eames pointed out. “Frankly, he was always going to end up in Limbo before the job was out.”

Cobb pursed his lips. “And Ariadne?”

Eames smiled despite himself and their situation. “Can you think of a better way for Fischer to make us play this game?” he asked. “For the Inception job we had that goal: inception, and the added incentive of the sedative you so thoughtfully used on us. For this our goal is rescuing Ariadne, without which we’d all have gladly stayed up on the first level. It was certainly less treacherous than the last and even less so, I suspect, than this one will be.”

Cobb’s faced creased in a frown. “What do you think is down here?”

Eames shrugged, not really wanting to voice his concerns. “If nothing else we’re going to have to take down Bowser with only one gun between us.”

“I’m running near empty,” Cobb confessed and, though reluctant to part with it, Eames reached into his shoulder holster and pulled out the magazine he’d collected in the last level, handing it over to Cobb.

“We should look out for any boxes,” Eames said and Cobb nodded his head in wordless agreement.

And just like that, they were back to silence.

 - - -

Their first break in the monotony came in the form of bones. Piles and piles of them sitting in heaped clumps and dotted at irregular intervals along the walkway.

Eames and Cobb shared a look but the confusion on both their faces as to what they might be put them both on edge. Cautiously, Eames nudged one of the piles with the tip of his boot, wincing at the clattering sound the bones made as they collapsed all over the stone floor. Cobb shot him a glare and they waited for one long, drawn-out moment to see if anything would come of it.

Nothing happened.

“What are you doing?” Cobb hissed, watching as Eames kicked over a second pile of bones.

“What does it look like I’m doing?” Eames asked, rhetorically.

“Eames!” Cobb grabbed at his arm, jerking him back as he moved onto yet another pile.

Eames pulled his arm back, roughly. “These could be like the boxes in the previous levels,” he defended.

“These boxes have a habit of changing form, do they?” Cobb asked sardonically.

Eames shrugged. “You’re the one who likes reminding us that this isn’t like the game. I’m just trying to find us something useful for when we get to the end of this level.”

He looked up from kicking over a third pile of bones, “Unless you have a better plan for rescuing Ariadne?”

Cobb scowled at him, “and toppling some bones going to achieve what exactly?”

“Oh, so you _do_ have a plan then?” Eames asked, smoothing his face into one of amicability. “Unless running headfirst into the lair of the beast- so to speak- with all guns blazing _is_ your idea of a plan?”

“I’ll do whatever I have to do to get Ariadne back.” Cobb said, folding his arms defensively.

“Bearing in mind we only gave one gun between us and we’re almost down to our last magazine?” Eames asked, eyebrows raised.

“Do you have a better one?”

“Nope,” Eames replied, almost pleasantly, “but you’ll excuse me if I continue to break open anything I come across, trying to find a little something extra to even the odds, yeah?”

Cobb’s lips thinned but he said nothing as Eames continued kicking over heaps of bones. The clattering sound they made as they scattered all over the ground echoed loudly around them.

“You’re wasting time,” Cobb said a few minutes later, fed up watching Eames knock over every mound of bones he could find. His efforts proving futile when all he’d achieved come the end of his task was a bloody great mess of bones scattered across the floor.

Eames paused a moment, surveying his handiwork with only slight regret. He’d been sure that there was something special about these bones, something that would help them get out of this situation in one piece. He looked around the corridor, saw the bleached-white bones lying scattered around, the flickering light from the torches lining the stone walls throwing them into the allusion of movement.

“…and it’s time Ariadne doesn’t have,” Eames tuned back to find that Cobb was still speaking to him. “She could be in Limbo by now with all the time we’ve wasted in these levels!”

“We can only hope that Fischer is that stupid,” Eames commented absently, biting his tongue against a retort of just how much time Cobb, himself, had been willing to waste with fighting words in the last level.

Cobb’s eyes blazed. “You want her to end up in Limbo?” he asked, dangerously.

“Think about it, Cobb,” Eames said, ignoring the tone. “Saito is already in Limbo, which means it’s his world she’d end up in if she died whilst still under the sedation.”

“Assuming she didn’t die before Saito,”

“Even if she did, she’d have ended up in his Limbo because he was the last one of us all to have been there before. Ariadne’s got to be safer down there than up here with Bowser.”

“There is, of course, the option that she hasn’t been killed,” Cobb said, “which brings me back to my first point of your wasting all of our time, whilst she’s holed up with that… that _monster_.”

“If you’re that concerned, Cobb, why haven’t you just—” Eames broke off at what sounded like more bones clattering to the ground.

Except, he hadn’t knocked any more down.

In fact, he was pretty sure he’d kicked them all over in the first place. He hesitated, his eyes meeting Cobb’s steadily darkening gaze, before they both simultaneously turned towards the sound.

Nothing.

The bones seemed to be as haphazardly scattered as they’d been after Eames had finished with them. Eames frowned, eyes flickering over the area before them, but all was still. Sudden clattering to the right, and they twisted, scanning their eyes over the short width of the corridor. At first they saw nothing, heard nothing but the echo of the sound they thought they’d heard. And then, just as Eames was about to turn away again, to throw it off as a fluke of precariously stacked bones, he caught a shiver of movement out the corner of his eye.

He narrowed his eyes against the flickering shadows, zeroing in on the movement he’d thought he’d seen. The bone seemed to quiver a second time before slowly dragging itself across the stone floor in quick, short bursts, the clatter as it went resonating around them. It reached a small mound of bones and seemed to join itself to them.

Eames swallowed thickly, turning his mind momentarily to some of the evolved versions of the Mario Bros game. He hadn’t played the games in years but there was something about the way the bones seemed to be rejoining themselves, and more than that, the way they appeared to be _building_ themselves into things that very worryingly began to resemble _creatures_ …

“I think we’d better move on,” Eames said, voice slightly hoarse as he took a step backwards, away from the bones littering the ground before them. Even as he moved, he saw more of the bones begin to quiver and slide themselves back towards their original piles.

Cobb drew his gun, pointing it directly at the first of the skeleton creatures to fully form from the piles, its bones clanking together as it shook itself into animation.

“That’s not going to help,” Eames said, reluctantly.

Cobb spared him a brief, accusatory look.

“Hey,” Eames defended, holding his arms up in a somewhat placating manner. “We needed the ammo.”

“Yes,” Cobb agreed, taking a careful step backwards as the creatures finished forming and stood, quivering but unmoving, before them, “But we didn’t get any ammo, did we?”

“It seemed like a good idea at the time,” Eames offered, sheepishly. The look Cobb threw him wasn’t particularly understanding.

“What are we dealing with?” Cobb asked, instead, his eyes fixed on the creatures which were still just standing there, seeming to watch them through their empty eye-sockets.

“Um, well, I think originally they were Koopa-Troopas,” Eames supplied, already a few paces behind Cobb’s slow backwards shuffle. “But in this form they’re just known as Dry Bones, or Skeleton Koopas.”

Cobb shot him another over the shoulder look, “Alright then, _Mario_ , how do we stop them?”

Eames rolled his eyes, “Not by shooting them,” he muttered before brightly suggesting, “you could try kicking them over again.”

“Let me guess,” Cobb replied, snidely, “it works in the game?”

The question was rhetorical and he pressed on without giving Eames a chance to reply. “Forgive me if I’m a little wary about kicking anything else in this world,” Cobb said, thinking about the Goomba back on the first level.

“We could probably outrun them,” Eames suggested then.

“Probably?”

“As you keep reminding me, this isn’t exactly like the game. They could be a more evolved version.”

The creatures- Dry Bones, or Koopa’s, or whatever-the-hell they were called- suddenly surged forward, their footsteps quick and clattering loudly against the stone floors.

Despite Eames’ warning, Cobb fired at them, his index finger flexing against the trigger until his clip ran dry. The bullets just rained ineffectually down upon the Koopas, either passing straight through their skeletons or ricocheting uselessly off the bones they connected with.

Cobb cursed, hastening to reload. Eames grabbed his shoulder.

“How about we just get out of here?” He said.

Cobb nodded, re-holstering his gun and turning in the same movement to follow Eames in a quick sprint down the dimly lit passageway. The echo of the following Koopa’s never seemed to fade away, and every time they chanced a look behind them it was to find the creatures always within their sights. It was almost as if no matter how far or fast they ran, they’d never outrun the Skeleton Koopas.

Eames was still looking behind him when Cobb came to an abrupt halt. He flung his arm out, catching Eames heavily across the chest and pulling a grunt of discomfort from him.

“What—” Eames began, twisting forward. His words died in his throat as he stared in disbelief at the gaping chasm which had opened up before them. The passageway was badly lit, enough to disguise the sudden drop in the floor, had Cobb not been paying attention to where they were going. They took a second to assess their options. The gap was too large to jump unaided, and even if they’d been willing to test the gravity of this world further, the orange glow coming from the very bottom of the chasm gave them serious pause for thought.

“Is that—?” Cobb started, eyes wide as he stared down.

“Lava?” Eames asked, looking over the edge. He felt his skin prickling with the sudden increase of heat and he rolled his shoulders, uncomfortably. It was probably his imagination but he thought he could feel the burn of the stone beneath his feet seeping up through the soles of his shoes.

“Yeah,” Cobb breathed. Eames said nothing, tearing his eyes from the pit of lava below them and searching their immediate surroundings for a solution. Behind them the Skeleton Koopa’s continued their quick, clattering approach, their blank-eyed stare unnervingly intent as they closed in on them.

“I think we’re going to have to chance a jump,” Eames hesitated, turning back to Cobb.

“Do you hear that?” Cobb asked instead of replying to Eames’ comment. Eames frowned, turning his eyes skywards as Cobb looked towards the ceiling. All Eames could hear was the dry scrape of bones against stone as the Koopas closed in on them, but he did see something hanging in the chasm above them. They looked like… chains. The dull metallic links swayed soundlessly, moving in the rising heat from the lava below them.

They looked away, searching the walls beside them for some way to lower the chains. Cobb drew his gun again, spotting something of use in the wall beside him. He fired once, then twice, three times before the chains above the chasm suddenly _dropped_ , jarring to a halt as the board they were fastened to came level with the roof of their passageway.

The chains were thick and evenly spaced, and even though they looked dull and grimy, Eames had no doubt that they would seer the flesh from their hands if they so much as brushed against them. He shared a look with Cobb just as the lead Skeleton Koopa reached them, its beaky face snapping violently towards them.

They were out of options.

Cobb jumped first: his arms reaching, his hands grabbing, his body arching in a swing as he threw himself across the chasm. He made a grunting sound as he grabbed two hand holds of chain, but it wasn’t until he reached the other side and tore his hands free of their grip did he let out a roar of pain.

Eames winced, hesitated. He looked down at his hands and flexed his fingers, knowing that this was going to hurt like a mother—

The lead Skeleton Koopa snapped at him, its beaky mouth biting into the flesh of his leg- the same leg the mutant Cheep-Cheep had torn a chunk out of and Eames swore, kicking out at the creature. He was almost disappointed to find that the kick dislodged the creature’s bones, scattering it all over the ground before him.

He briefly considered kicking all the Koopas and coming up with another way to cross the chasm when the pile of bones at his feet began to quiver, as if preparing to rebuild itself already.

Eames cursed again, turning back to the chasm and the chains and praying desperately that this didn’t hurt nearly as much as he thought it was going to. He spared a moment to spit futilely into his palms, rubbing them briskly together before then launching himself after Cobb.

He reached out, fingers instinctively clenching around the first of the chains he caught.

At first he felt nothing. He swung himself out over the ledge, angling his body for the jump towards the other side. And then, as if someone had suddenly poured a jug of boiling water over his palms, Eames felt the burn as hot metal began to melt its way through his flesh. He swore he heard his skin sizzle and tear as he wrenched his hands free of the chain, his body falling heavily to the ground on the other side of the chasm.

His fingers gave a spasm, the skin over his hands red-raw and burning. Eames breathed heavily through clenched teeth, fighting the urge to just scream his way through the pain. Beside him, Cobb was sitting with his own hands curled up protectively against his chest.

Over, on the other side of the chasm, the Skeleton Koopas stood, lined up like silent sentries as they stared across at them, unmoving but all-seeing.

Despite the heat surrounding them, Eames shivered, turning his eyes back to Cobb who was eyeing him expressionlessly.

Wordlessly, they both pushed to their feet, ignoring their combined aches and pains, as they continued on their journey onwards towards the end of the level.

 - - -

Though the Skeleton Koopas never reappeared, they weren’t nearly so lucky when it came to the lava. It felt as if for every few feet they traversed, they soon came across another lava-involving obstacle they had to find a way to manoeuvre themselves around. Though nothing felt as dangerous as the first chasm, this level certainly seemed to be trying to throw them off their game.

If they weren’t tight-roping it across yawning pools of lava, or tip-toeing their way over crumbing stepping stones set just inches above the lava-level, they were having to do so whilst fireballs of the stuff spat themselves up out of the fiery puddles, throwing them off balance and out of kilter.

It took Eames a long while before he realised he could hear something other than the hissing and spitting of lava bubbles bursting just inches from their feet as they stepped cautiously but quickly over the stones peeking out through this latest pool of lava barring their way.

“Cobb?” Eames called, voice pitched low just in case.

“I hear it too,” Cobb agreed, taking one last leap and grabbing for the ledge ahead of them, using his arms to pull himself awkwardly up onto the stone walkway once more. He turned, holding his arm- crooked at the elbow- out to Eames, who hooked his own arm gratefully through it, using the added leverage to pull himself up with more ease than Cobb had managed without using his wounded hands.

“Cheers,” he muttered the thanks under his breath as they both paused, taking a moment to recuperate whilst simultaneously straining their ears to catch the slight lilting sound they both could hear.

“Is that—” Eames started the paused.

“—singing?” Cobb finished with a frown that quickly dropped from his face as recognition washed suddenly over the both of them.

“Ariadne!” They both called out at the same time, scrambling to their feet and pushing into a run as they hurried on towards the sound, heedless of any remaining booby traps or obstacles that remained in their path.

Thankfully they didn’t run into anything untoward and within ten minutes they found themselves stepping into a large open space- the area was bright, the walls reflected red from the giant lake of lava stretching out between where they stood and the plateau of rock where they could see both Ariadne and Bowser: a thin rope bridge, swaying lightly in the updraft, the only thing connecting the two spaces.

Eames wasn’t sure who saw who first but just as Ariadne turned to them with a smile so bright and trusting that Eames knew she hadn’t once doubted they’d come for her, Bowser let out a enraged roar and leapt towards the bridge, barring the way between them and the other side.

“Bowser, no!” Ariadne’s stern voice reverberated around the cavernous space and Eames watched in amazement as the creature bristled a moment, one large forearm pawing uneasily at the wood of the bridge.

“Bowser,” Ariadne admonished and Bowser let out a whining sound before turning and slinking away from the bridge. It sat itself a few paces away from her with a low and irritable growl.

“Good boy,” Ariadne cooed then, reaching out to pet at the creature’s arm, and Eames felt as though his eyes were about to bug right out of his head as he watched Bowser settle a little more under her ministrations.

“So much for our intervention,” he muttered, slanting a look to Cobb who was looking just as surprised and perplexed as Eames felt. Ariadne looked… completely okay.

More than okay even, as she turned back towards them.

“Are you coming over or what?” she called to them, stepping away from Bowser and smirking at them. Her words and carefree demeanour snapped them both from their sudden stupor.

Cobb was the first to step onto the rope-bridge, his footing careful but quick as he made his way across.

“Ariadne, darling, not that I’m not happy to see you,” Eames began as he followed cautiously behind Cobb, his lips twitching as Cobb reached the other end and grabbed Ariadne up in a twirling hug that saw her laughing and Bowser perking up with another growl. “But aren’t _we_ supposed to be rescuing _you_?”

Ariadne laughed again as Cobb set her down She reached out to hug at Eames too.

“This is the twenty-first century, Eames,” she grinned, letting him go. “Princesses can officially save themselves now.”

Even Cobb laughed at that and Eames felt himself smiling at the look of complete relief and fondness painted across the other man’s face.

“You’re going to have to explain just how you managed that at some point,” Eames said, “But first things first, I don’t suppose you’ve come across any PASIV devices just lying around, have you?”

Ariadne’s smile faded into a frown at his words, “Where’s everybody else?” she asked then, peeking behind the pair of them as if expecting to find the others just coming out of the passageway.

“Don’t worry,” Cobb assured her, “Yusuf and Arthur are safe, they’re manning the PASIV’s on levels one and two, but Saito—”

“—is in Limbo?” she finished, raising her eyebrows. “Again?”

“Ah, well,” Eames started, “there was a rather unfortunate incident with a timer and the world sort of imploding in on itself, and Saito just happened to get caught up in the middle of it.”

Ariadne winced. “I did come across a PASIV,” she said, slowly, “but… it’s a bit of a coincidence, don’t you think?”

“What is?” Cobb asked, his eyes following her as she stepped around Bowser, her hand carelessly brushing over one of the creature’s arms as she went to retrieve the device.

“Just… well, it was the three of us left in the third level for the Inception Job too.”

“It _is_ just a coincidence,” Cobb said, smiling encouragingly. Ariadne looked less than convinced.

“Why would Fischer leave us a PASIV if he didn’t want us going down into Limbo?”

Cobb didn’t have an answer. Neither did Eames for that matter, and they spent a sobering moment wondering what they were about to get themselves into, and if it could be any worse than what they’d already faced.

“So what’s the plan?” Ariadne asked a moment later when no answer appeared forthcoming.

“We go down into Limbo, we find Saito and then we get the hell out of this entire dream.”

“Sounds good,” she agreed, setting the case out between them and tugging one of the cords towards herself.

“What are you doing?” Cobb asked, hesitating as he reached for his own needle.

Ariadne’s eyes narrowed. “You don’t honestly think I’m staying up here, do you?”

“We need someone to watch us,” Cobb said, his eyes flickering over towards Bowser, “and you seem pretty safe here, all thing considered.”

Even Eames raised his eyebrows at that. He’d been thinking the same thing, of course, but after seeing firsthand how hell-bent Cobb had been to rescue Ariadne from this creature in the first place, the idea that he was willing to leave her alone with it again was quite the shock.

“If you think for one minute that I’m staying behind because it’s _safer_ —” Ariadne began, her voice rising defensively. Behind her, Bowser growled menacingly.

“I just meant—” Cobb broke off under the glare she directed at them.

“Ariadne,” Eames interrupted, taking her hand gently in his own wounded grip. “Please understand that we just want to look out for you, it’s been incredibly trying navigating our way to this point.”

“And the idea of you having to go through what we did—” Cobb started as Eames finished.

“All the more reason for me to do my part,” she interrupted again, folding her arms stubbornly across her chest.

Eames felt his lips twitching at the sight. Cobb scowled at her and then at Eames.

“Lend me your gun,” Eames said then and Cobb blinked at him.

“What?”

“I think it’s pretty clear who’s going under, and if you expect me to stay here and watch over the two of you with that—,” he pointed at Bowser, “—giving me the eye, then I’ll want to be armed, thank you very much.”

Cobb looked reluctant. “We might need it.”

“Yes, you might,” Eames agreed, “but I definitely will. He’s taken a fondness to Ariadne, but there’s no telling what’ll happen once she’s asleep.”

Ariadne paused in thought a moment before reaching up and untying the scarf around her neck. She held it out to Eames.

“I don’t know if it’ll help, but—” she gestured for Eames to put it around his own neck. Eames grinned and instead stuffed it into the front pocket of his shirt.

“Thank you,” he said to her, then turned and held his hand expectantly out to Cobb who handed over his gun with great reluctance. Eames smiled, satisfied as he held its reassuring weight in his hand, before reaching out towards the PASIV.

“Ready?” he asked.

Cobb finished affixing his own needle and lay down beside Ariadne. He gave Eames a curt nod.

“Sweet dreams,” Eames commented before depressing the button and releasing the sedative.


	5. Limbo

The shock of cold stole the cry of surprise from Ariadne’s throat as she found herself once again washing up on the beach of their subconscious. Instead of the comfort of the sun-warmed surf she’d first experienced, the water she found herself in was cold as ice, the sea choppy and frothed and crashing down over her body without mercy.

Cobb’s hands were strong, insistent as he grabbed her up, half-dragging her out of the water and towards the safety of the beach where they collapsed together, teeth-chattering and disoriented as they took a brief moment to ground themselves.

Around them the sea continued to recede and swell, before falling back onto the shore with a formidable crashing sound. The sky above was dark, storm clouds hanging heavy over Limbo and throwing the world into a premature darkness.

Looking around, Ariadne saw that the buildings Cobb had once shown her from their first fateful trip into his own subconscious were now lying in ruins- lumps of black-grey stone scattered carelessly up and down the beachfront. Some of the larger fragments had rolled into the sea itself and now protruded from the aggressive waters looking dark and foreboding.

Ariadne shivered more violently at the sight and Cobb shuffled closer, slinging his arm uselessly around her shoulders. He was just as cold and wet as she was, but she appreciated the gesture.

“We should—” she started, coughing as her words stuck in her mouth. She shivered again, feeling as though the chilled seawater had soaked her through to her bones.

“Yeah,” Cobb agreed, his answer more an exhale of air compared to the sound of his teeth chattering uncontrollably together.

They should move, is what Ariadne had wanted to say, but it was so very cold and maybe if they just sat for a little while, together, then they could… she struggled for a moment to remember why they were here…

Something dropped onto her cheek and Ariadne blinked her eyes back open. Funny that she couldn’t remember closing them in the first place. The repetition of the sea crashing into the shore was almost lulling. Her shivering had tapered off. Beside her, Cobb sat, his eyes closed. Ariadne smiled, her eyes fluttering as if to close when she felt another drop of something touch her face.

With a slight frown, she shook herself awake enough to see flakes of white falling from the sky. Her heart stuttered a moment before she felt a small smile stretch across her mouth. Snow. Usually so cold and unwelcoming when experienced back at school in France, now it was a sight which lifted her spirits as she tipped her head back and grinned into the flakes that landed upon her chilled face.

She thought about how warm the snow felt here, compared to how cold she felt, and again she thought of France, of waking one morning her first winter there to find the world painted white and the childish excitement she’d felt to see it. She remembered how quickly the excitement had faded as snow turned to slush and then ice and brought misery to everyone who had to venture out onto campus and beyond.

“Dom,” she whispered. Her body hurt to move, her fingers aching as she flexed them open, reaching out to touch at Cobb’s face. His eyes opened, slowly, and he frowned at her.

“Dom, we need to move,” she said, her grip tightening around his jaw, her fingers too cold to feel the scratch of his skin and she felt a jolt of panic shoot through her; thoughts of hypothermia warring with the almost overwhelming desire to just lie down and go to sleep.

Cobb seemed to rouse himself at the sight of her panic. Slowly they helped each other up, their bodies trembling with cold and fatigue as they stood, holding onto each other for support.

“We need to find Saito,” Ariadne said, looking up at Cobb who nodded distractedly, his eyes squinting through the gloom, and the now quickly falling snow, and towards what appeared to be the last building still standing. With an arm wrapped tightly around her waist, Cobb led them across the beach- their feet sinking into the wet sand and sending them staggering more than once as they trudged in wary silence towards the building.

Ariadne didn’t ask and Cobb didn’t offer any explanations, her usual curiosity dampened by the struggle to just keep walking, to put one foot in front of the other, to keep going. Her legs burned, her lungs hurt with every breath, but with the exertion came a flush of warmth that suffused its way though her numbed body like the lick of a flame against skin, and with every step they covered, they began to recover themselves.

Ariadne soon felt her sluggish thoughts reawaken, her inquisitiveness rekindled, she stared at the world around them with renewed interest, her eyes following Cobb’s intent gaze towards what she’d first assumed was a building, but upon further inspection appeared to be a cliff with a large structure perched atop it.

“What is that?” She asked.

Cobb’s arm tightened fractionally.

“Something from Saito’s time down here,” he said, voice hoarse. “Remember he had time to create his own world over mine.”

Ariadne nodded, her rat-tailed hair moving stiffly around her face. She grimaced.

“What did he create?”

Cobb spared her a tired look, but smiled. “I don’t remember much. Just his home, which is where I’m hoping he’ll be now.” He frowned then, commenting, “I’d expected his projections would have found us by now.”

Ariadne looked at him curiously. “How were they on the other levels?”

“There weren’t any,” Cobb answered. “Unless his projections can forge into the creatures we’ve had to contend with.”

“Is that even possible?” she questioned.

“The forging or that there haven’t been any projections?”

“Either. Both,” she frowned lightly. “There’s still so much I don’t know about this stuff.”

“There’s still so much even I don’t know about dream sharing,” Cobb admitted, “and I was involved in most of the early experimentation.”

“It’s just…” she hesitated. “I’ve seen so much here in Fischer’s world already that I didn’t realise was possible. If I could learn how to remove the projections from the dreams… the _worlds_ I could create!”

Cobb couldn’t help but smile at the light of excitement he could see in her eyes. There was no denying that Ariadne was a brilliant Architect, and she was right, without the projections to interfere she could create just about anything. Much like Fischer had managed here in his Mario-esque dream world.

They were close enough to the cliff face to see the treacherous looking pathway carved into the rock, curling upwards at a steep and unwelcoming angle. Added to that, the stone was slicked and iced up with the falling snow.

“I want you to go first,” Cobb said, turning Ariadne’s thoughts back to their present situation. “If you slip I’ll have more chance of catching you.”

“And if you slip?” She asked, but stepped forward anyway, her fingers taking hold of the half-frozen rope lining the sea-facing edge of the cliff.

“I’ll do my best not to,” he assured her. “I’ve had more than enough near-death experiences already.”

“What?” Ariadne looked at him from over her shoulder, her fingers tightening on the rope.

“Keep moving,” Cobb said, smiling at the frown that creased her brow. He waited until she started walking again before speaking.

“You’re lucky you missed most of the levels,” he started, and proceeded to tell her the bare bones of just what the team had had to go through in order to get to this point, including the loss of Saito, Yusuf’s staying back on Level One, his own near death experience in the waters of Level Two and the revelation of Arthur and Eames being _Arthur-and-Eames_.

By the time they made it to the cliff top, Cobb had only nearly-died once on the climb up when he lost his footing on a particularly slippery patch of black ice (Ariadne’s quick thinking and relatively quick reflexes the only thing stopping him from sliding right over the edge), and Ariadne had a pretty good idea of just what the rest of the team had had to do to get to her (she was sure that there existed no amount of chocolate in the world with which to express her thanks).

The top of the cliff was coated with a thick layer of snow reaching up towards their knees. They came up around the back of a large and breathtakingly beautiful palace-like structure which Cobb assured her was one that Saito actually owned back in the waking world.

The inside of the building was dark and unlighted, and just as cold and exposed to the elements as the rock face they’d just traversed had been. They fumbled their way through the multitude of hallways and staircases, all of them left in a sad state of disrepair, moving ever onwards towards the room Cobb was sure they’d find Saito.

“What’s wrong with this place?” Ariadne asked, her eyes taking in weather-ruined tapestries and furnishings. The entire inside of the building appeared to be coated in a thin layer of ice. Cobb didn’t have any answers, though he wondered the same, and instead urged them onwards.

The room, when they found it, was almost exactly how Cobb remembered it from previous dream visits: the rich décor, the elaborate furnishings, all of it unlike the rest of the building which was crumbling away even now. This room, however, this well lit and welcomingly warm room retained the impression of grandeur that Cobb had always associated with Saito.

Saito sat at one end of the long dining table, his back to Cobb and Ariadne both as they hesitated in the open doorway. At the furthest end sat a large skeleton-like creature. It looked to be a cross between Bowser and the Skeleton Koopas Cobb had had the misfortune of meeting in the previous level.

On the table between them sat what looked to be a virtual board game spanning four levels, each level elevated diagonally above the previous ones. The game on the table itself had a thin layer of icy-mist rolling over the edges and across the polished top of the table. The next level had what appeared to be lava spilling over its edges in thick, gloopy splashes that sizzled upon contact with the table, burning slowly through the thick wood. The level above this one looked like a gargantuan waterfall with only a tiny stone building and an island in the centre. The top level was surprisingly bare, consisting only of a squat grey-like building slap-bang in the middle of the board.

“Good evening,” Saito greeted without turning. Ariadne shared a look with Cobb and they stepped further into the room, their feet careful against the ice that crept its way in after them.

“Saito?” Ariadne called, warily. She felt Cobb move up behind her and was reassured by his nearness as they moved to stand beside Saito.

The closer they approached the more details they could make out on the boards, and it wasn’t long until Ariadne recognised the levels of the game as being the same as the levels of the dream Cobb had described to her during their climb.

She shared a look with Cobb and saw that he too saw the likeness.

Saito held his hand out towards the bottom board- Limbo- and flicked his fingers out. They watched as on the board two small human-shaped figurines appeared inside a mini-version of the room they now stood inside.

Skeletal Bowser made a grinding sound with his jaw and Ariadne shivered, sure it was a sign of displeasure. Even so, she peered closer, seeing more figurines scattered not only around the board, but around the different levels. Not just figures though, there were also an array of creatures lining the boards on Saito’s side, like pieces won in a game of chess.

Skeletal Bowser moved splinter-like finger bones towards one of the upper levels of the board, plucking one of his creatures up and putting it on Level One. They watched, amazed, as the mini-creature shook itself into life and began to fly teasingly around the squatted fortress, throwing small projectiles towards it.

Saito frowned his own displeasure, lifting his hand and waving it in a smack at the creature on level one, throwing it towards the fortress.

The move put the creature dangerously close to the building, and as they watched a small human-shaped figurine suddenly appeared in one of the openings to the fortress. Soon afterwards the creature jerked, curling up into itself and dropping down onto the board, looking like a dead spider on a windowsill.

A second later the creature moved silently towards Saito’s side of the table and joined itself to a quite sizable pile of already defeated enemies. It was frightening to see just what the team could have faced off against in the levels and Ariadne wondered if Saito was to thank for that.

The next move went to Skeletal Bowser and Level Two. Cobb tensed beside her and Ariadne looked to him, curiously, even as Skeletal Bowser moved his clawed hand into a cupped shape, which served to both stop the overspill of water from the board, and in the same gesture made the waterfall curl in on itself, spilling the water back onto the board itself and causing the water level to steadily begin to rise.

“Arthur,” Cobb said to Ariadne’s questioning look. She nodded, biting at her lip and understanding the worry he felt.

Saito folded his hands together, eyes intent on the board and his next move. Skeletal Bowser appeared to be watching them, silent and calculating.

“Saito,” Cobb started, touching cautiously at Saito’s shoulder. “Saito, we need to leave.”

Saito stirred at the touch, though his attention never wavered from the games before him. “Leave?” he repeated.

“Yes,” Cobb said.

“How does one leave a game with Death?” Saito asked, his voice calm, conversational.

Cobb frowned, eyes flickering towards Skeletal Bowser. “Are you playing Death?”

“Aren’t we all?” Saito returned.

Cobb pursed his lips. Ariadne moved closer towards them. “Can you win this game, Saito?”

Saito smiled tightly. “Yes,” he replied, “but if I do he will take offence and kill me.”

“And if you lose?” she pressed.

“If I lose he will kill me in victory.”

“Don’t we want him to kill you?” she asked, though she directed the question towards Cobb who gave a jerky nod of his head.

“Do we?” Saito returned.

“Yes, Saito,” Ariadne said, “We need to go back. We need to wake up.”

“Ah. Are we dreaming?” he asked, unclasping his hands and reaching out towards the bottom board, he pointed his index finger and the walls of the room exploded outwards at the same time the walls around them exploded in the same manner, exposing them suddenly to the howling wind and snow as the walls collapsed and the roof slanted to the side, dropping over the edge of the cliff with an almighty crashing sound.

“Saito!” Ariadne cried as the wind buffered them, shaking at the table and the games. Cobb quickly grabbed at her, drawing her to his side with one arm whilst he gripped the back of Saito’s chair with his free hand, keeping them in place.

Saito raised his hand further and pointed it towards Skeletal Bowser who sat unmoving and seemingly unconcerned by the fact the room around them no longer existed. His jaw shifted then, the sound like nails down a chalkboard and Ariadne got the distinct impression that this time he was smiling. She shivered violently at both the thought and the fresh onslaught of arctic air gusting over them, she clung closer to Cobb.

“Saito, we need to go. Now!” Cobb yelled over the howl of wind. Saito ignored him.

Skeletal Bowser raised his hand then and they watched as on Level Three, the miniature version of Bowser quivered to life and Ariadne’s eyes widened in horror as she saw the creature begin to advance on the figurine she knew to be Eames.

Saito kept his finger pointed at Skeletal Bowser and he flickered under the scrutiny, his skeletal form appearing to melt away to reveal a well-suited and incredibly smug looking young man.

Fischer.

Ariadne gaped at the sight of him. They’d known he was joining them in the dream, but to have deliberately sent himself down into Limbo just to conduct the course of the levels… she wasn’t sure whether to be impressed or horrified by the intensive knowledge he seemed so have of the dreamscape. That and the ease with which he appeared to manipulate it.

The image of Skeletal Bowser flickered back into place and they watched as he stood from the table. Saito mirrored the movement, apparently unconcerned at the idea he’d been facing off with Fischer the entire time he’d been down here, and in sync they offered each other a short bow of acknowledgement.

Skeletal Bowser- _Fischer_ \- straightened then and stepped towards the edge of the room, he spared them one last look before stepping out of the room, his body dropping down to smash itself over the ruins below.

The second he died the world around them began to shake, the earth rumbling and crumbling around them as Fischer’s dreams started to collapse around them.

Cobb grabbed Saito then, dragging them all towards the edge of the room where they then stood, wavering, and stared down at the terrifying drop before them.

“Are you sure, Mr Cobb?” Saito asked then, his voice raised slightly to be heard over the wind lashing them.

They looked at him and Saito looked perfectly nonchalant despite their current circumstances. He smiled and despite his blasé appearance, Ariadne knew he was still the same Saito they’d gotten to know on the Inception Job.

“Are you sure that the sedative has worn off completely?” Saito clarified and, surprising them all, Cobb smiled.

“We’re about to find out!” He grinned, his hand still tight on Saito’s upper arm. He shared a nod with Saito before turning his smile to Ariadne. He uncurled his arm from her waist and took hold of her hand instead, his grip as tight as her own.

“Ready?” He called.

And without another word they stepped forward, and over the edge.

 - - -

Eames and Bowser had come to a silent agreement to remain at each end of the plateau. They sat now, bare minutes having passed since Cobb and Ariadne had gone under, watching each other in silent distrust. Eames didn’t dare move for fear of inciting any kind of reaction from Bowser. He held Cobb’s gun in a loosely fisted grip, ready and waiting for the moment Bowser got bored of simply watching him.

He didn’t have to wait long. An ominous rumbling sound echoed through the cavern seconds before the entire place began to shake and though seated, Eames felt himself lurching to the side. He scrabbled for balance; eyes flying to check on Cobb and Ariadne whose bodies shook with the quake but otherwise remained where they were.

He heard a low growling start up and he looked over towards Bowser, watching as the creature stood up on its hind legs, its head twisting back and forth as it looked around itself, its snout twitching as if trying to sniff out the cause of the commotion.

Loose rocks began to roll down from the cavern walls, along with one or two of the larger stalactites hanging from the darkened ceiling above them. The debris splashed down into the lake of lava surrounding them, sending out rolling waves of the fiery substance and spitting up large bubbles which themselves then erupted with fireballs that flew high into the air before splashing back down into the pool below.

Bowser let out a roar and Eames tightened his grip on the gun, watching as the creature swung towards him. Its beady eyes fixated on Eames a second before it launched itself over Cobb and Ariadne’s prone bodies towards him.

The crack of the gun going off was swallowed up by the sound of the cavern collapsing around them, but even as Eames watched, he saw the shot simply bounce off Bowser’s chest. The creature stopped, seemingly more surprised that anyone would dare try to harm it than actually hurt by the bullet itself.

Bowser pawed at his chest before turning back to Eames, its roar echoing around the cavern, the sound loud enough to send a further scrabble of loosened rocks down into the pool below.

“STOP!” Eames shouted, seeing the way Bowser tensed for another pounce towards him. The creature stopped but Eames knew it wouldn’t be for long, he didn’t have Ariadne’s charm over the creature and he doubted it was something he could fake in the few remaining seconds he had.

Ariadne! The remembrance of her had Eames hurriedly scrabbling for the scarf she’d tucked into the pocket of his shirt and flicking it out towards Bowser like some kind of twisted favour. The move seemed to work, for the moment at least, and Bowser hunched himself down, his snout twitching between Eames and the scarf, trying to determine just which to go for.

Eames thought fast, this temporary truce wouldn’t last long and he needed to come up with some way to neutralise Bowser before the creature got the best of him. He took a cautionary look over his shoulder, saw the edge of the plateau a few steps away, as well as the vigorously swinging bridge leading back across the pool. He briefly considered making a run for it- but to what end? Bowser would only give chase and he’d be leaving Cobb and Ariadne unguarded.

He looked back towards the scarf in his hand, then to Bowser who was quivering at the mere sight of it. He looked then to the gun in his other hand, then back towards Bowser, seeing where his initial shot had failed to pierce through the thick shell-like flesh of his chest. He looked between the gun and the scarf and with little choice, he hurried to wrap and tie the scarf crudely around Cobb’s gun before throwing it towards the bridge and himself over the edge of the plateau they stood upon.

Bowser roared angrily, launching itself after the gun which had, thankfully, landed on one of the wooden planks of the bridge.

Eames on the other hand, dropped over the side of the plateau, his fingers scrabbling desperately for purchase as he twisted his body towards the bridge, his hands grabbing at the rope just as Bowser ran across the bridge taking the bait. The entire bridge shuddered, swinging widely to the side and Eames gritted his teeth against the flare of pain as the rope tore into his hands; already formed blisters from playing Tarzan with the chains earlier on now ripped themselves open and he fought not to cry out.

The bridge lurched back and forth and despite the throbbing in his hands, Eames forced himself to keep moving. He used his arms to pull himself upwards enough to slip between the segments of rope holding the bridge together. His knees hit the planks with a dull thud and only once he was sure he was securely upon the bridge did he dare release his hold on the rope. Eames bit at his bottom lip, suppressing his yell of pain as he brought his hands up to his chest, trying not to look at the blood and pus-like substance oozing up from his blistered palms.

He turned his head quickly towards Bowser who was maybe a foot or two away, the creature had Ariadne’s scarf in one clawed fist and was in the process of rubbing its snout all over the fabric. Even as he watched, however, Bowser seemed to sense the scrutiny and looked up, meeting Eames’ gaze. It bristled upon seeing him and Eames could see its body tensing for another pounce.

Eames scrambled to his feet once more, pushing himself into a run back towards the plateau where, the instant he set foot onto the relative safety of the rock, he slammed his aching palm down onto the skull and crossbones button beside the bridge.

The entire bridge suddenly snapped loose at both ends, dropping straight down into the pool of lava beneath it without ceremony. Eames watched as Bowser fell with it, its roar of anger and frustration morphing into an animalistic cry of pain that had Eames wincing even as he moved himself further onto the plateau.

His heart was pounding against his chest, his hands burned something fierce, and the world around him continued to fall apart but Eames didn’t have even a minute to reacclimatise himself to his precarious surroundings. Not long after he’d collapsed the bridge, the plateau he stood upon gave a particularly violent judder and a sizeable chunk of the rock on the bridge-facing side just dropped away.

He hurried over to Cobb and Ariadne, checking that they were both still okay. Despite the situation, their bodies looked none the worse for ware. A large stalactite crashed down onto the other end of the plateau, tearing off another piece of the rock. Eames winced as small projectiles flew up at them from the contact.

“Hurry up,” Eames muttered, his eyes roving around the cavernous space. He wasn’t afraid of dying here so much as he was worried about what would happen to both Cobb and Ariadne if they weren’t awake on this level when it happened. Fischer’s dreamscape was already so wildly different from the kinds of dreams they were used to infiltrating, and though technically possible to jump directly from a lower level straight back into ones own mind and body, not even Eames was reckless enough to think they should be taking the chance under these circumstances.

“Eames!” a voice suddenly echoed around the cavern and Eames twisted away from Cobb and Ariadne, both of whom were both still soundly asleep. There was no one else in the cavern. Eames frowned to himself, ready to write it off as a fluke of his imagination when he heard his name called again. The sound was soft but comprehensible and Eames wondered momentarily how he could hear it so very clearly even over the sound of rock crashing and lava bubbles exploding.

“Eames, hurry, please hurry—” the words were getting louder, more frantic and the more he heard the more he recognised the voice as being Arthur’s. Eames cursed, knowing then that whatever danger they might be in on Level Three, Arthur was in just as much, if not worse, up on Level Two.

Damnit. They needed to get out of here. He needed to get to Arthur. He shot an anxious look towards Cobb and Ariadne and for the briefest of instants considered leaving them. Cobb would know what to do when they woke up, and Eames knew he wouldn’t waste time looking for Eames either.

Eames pushed to his feet, ready to throw himself to the mercy of the lava pool when Ariadne woke up, closely followed by Cobb.

“Eames?” Ariadne called, her smile fading as she saw the state of the cavern around them.

Biting back a curse, Eames moved back towards the pair of them. “Did you get him?” he asked, knowing that if they’d succeeded then Saito would be the first of them to wake up back in his body.

The pair of them nodded the affirmative.

“Where’s Bowser?” Ariadne asked then but Eames was distracted from his own guilt over having had to off the creature by the sound of Arthur calling his name once more.

“We don’t have time for this,” he said instead, pushing back to his feet. “We need to get back up to the next level now.”

“What’s wrong?” Cobb asked, sensing his agitation. He stood quickly, helping Ariadne to her feet.

“Arthur,” Eames said, his voice tight. “We’ll need to jump, I’m afraid.”

Cobb grimaced at the suggestion but moved towards the edge without comment.

“I’ll never get used to this part,” Ariadne muttered, stepping between them and slipping her hands into theirs.

“Ari,” Eames started, “play that you’re still asleep when you wake up, just in case, yeah?”

Ariadne bit her lip, eyes widening, but she nodded. “Don’t worry about me, just make sure you get everyone else out of here.”

Eames nodded, squeezing her hand. He looked across towards Cobb who inclined his head towards Eames. Then they jumped.

 - - -

Arthur had been more than content to sit beside Eames’ sleeping body and wait for both him and Cobb to awaken. After setting the charges and walking a quick perimeter of the fortress to ensure that everything was secure, Arthur had settled himself down. The sound of the timer running out on the level had passed by almost without incident, if you could call the entire world bar the fortress they were safely ensconced in suddenly disappearing a non-incident, of course.

He should have known that the lull in dramatics was only going to last so long. The first sign of impending danger came in the way the world slowly began to darken. Arthur was on his feet, gun in hand, the second he noticed the shadows creeping in on the fortress, he moved quickly towards one of the windows and peered out into the nothingness. The sun had been the only thing to remain of the world but as Arthur turned his gaze upwards he saw the thick, rolling storm clouds moving in to block it out completely. The temperature began to drop and a he could hear a dull rumbling start up too.

What he first mistook to be the sound of thunder soon revealed itself to be a tsunami of water rising up in the distance. Arthur felt his entire body go cold at the sight of the encasing wall of water fast approaching the fortress from all sides. He knew there was no way the building would stand up to the onslaught of the waters direct assault.

Arthur swore under his breath, hurrying back over to where Eames and Cobb’s bodies lay. He hesitated. What was he supposed to do? There was only one way out of this situation and that was to kill himself now and return to Level One. He wasn’t about to leave Eames though, or Cobb.

He re-holstered his gun, kneeling beside Eames and moving down to speak into his ear.

“Eames,” he started, praying that this would work, “Eames if you can here me…”

A thunderclap sounded and Arthur jumped, twisting in time to see the rain start; fat, heavy droplets of water pounded straight down upon the fortress, bouncing in through the window holes and the open doorway, and within seconds the stone floor was swimming under a few centimetres of water.

“Eames!” Arthur shouted, turning back to him. He curled one hand around the back of Eames’ head, holding him close as he called into his ear, praying that Eames could hear the sound of his voice down in his level. He spared a worried look out the open doorway, estimating that the tsunami would hit them within the next few minutes.

“Eames, hurry, please hurry—” he said, voice turning more frantic as the rain began to pound more fiercely down upon the fortress, turning the centimetres of water already inside into inches that lapped up against their bodies.

He pressed his mouth to Eames’ ear, “Eames, so help me if you do not wake up right now—”

“I’m here,” Eames replied, cutting Arthur off. Arthur felt himself relax despite the immediate danger. He pulled away from Eames.

“Are you okay?” Arthur asked at the same time Eames did.

“We’re good,” Eames said, “We did it. What’s going on here?” he frowned to see the water already in the fortress.

“We’re about to be flooded,” Arthur gestured towards the doorway. “We need to get out of here, now.”

“Ready when you are, Arthur,” Cobb commented, his eyes fixed on the swiftly approaching wall of water. He didn’t look surprised to see it.

Arthur didn’t give the look a second thought; instead he gave a stiff nod, lifted the detonation device and blew the charges. Around them the entire fortress blew apart, kicking them back up into the first level. Seconds later, the tsunami hit what was left of the building, completely levelling it.

\- - -

Yusuf’s time up in the Level One fortress had been relatively uneventful to begin with. After setting the charges Eames had left him with, there hadn’t been too much else to do considering there was no longer a world surrounding them. Aside from worrying that is. Not knowing how the others were getting on, what they could be facing down on the lower levels, or even how long he should be expect to wait where he was, were the questions currently occupying his thoughts.

Though technically he knew the properties of the sedative Fischer had used on them and had a rough idea as to how long it would take before it left their systems, the added complication of the levels and the timers threw any guessing he could have made out of the picture entirely.

It was just creeping past the two hour mark when something came bouncing into the fortress through one of the windows. The _something_ was round, red and spiked and as Yusuf hurried to his feet it began to uncurl itself until it stood there, a small twitchy little thing with a spiked shell looking right at him.

Yusuf scrabbled to pick up the gun, inching his way along the walls of the fortress and tempting the creature into following, moving it out of line of sight of the others who were thankfully still asleep and unaware. The creature followed, lured by his movements, scuttling towards him with an angry hissing sound.

The crack of the gun was loud in the fortress, the sound reverberating through the small room. The shot connected with the creature and it burst open, exploding in mess of orange and red gunk. Yusuf curled his mouth in distaste at the horrible smell that rose up from the dead creature. He was just considering shoving what was left of it out of the fortress when another of the egg-like balls bounced in through the doorway this time.

It landed beside Arthur’s leg and Yusuf rushed to kick the creature back out the doorway before it could uncurl itself. The kick went wide and the creature bounced off the wall beside the door, landing heavily on the floor there. It uncurled, already angry, hissing and spitting, its little body twisting around as it sought out its target. Yusuf shot it, twice, before it had the chance to seek its revenge.

Two more balls shot in through the window then and Yusuf bit back a cry of alarm. He shot at the balls, missing the first but nailing the second. He hurried to the window, peering out in an endeavour to find out just where these creatures were coming from.

Another creature came sailing in through the window and Yusuf ducked quickly back. He’d seen the perpetrator however. The Lakitu. He chanced another look out of the window to see the reptilian creature hovered around the fortress, its green and yellow scales shining under the glare of the sun as it moved back and forth around the building, in one of its clawed hands it held another of the spiky, red eggs. Spiney’s, Yusuf thought, moving away from the window and searching out the creatures still inside. One of them was currently gnawing on one of Cobb’s shoes, the other was tearing at Eames’ shirtsleeve with its sharp little teeth.

“Hey!” Yusuf shouted. Both creatures stopped, turning to look at him with hooded eyes, they each let loose one of their spitting-hisses before scuttling towards him. Yusuf walked backwards, leading them away from the others before raising his gun and shooting first one and then the other in the face. Like the rest, they exploded the instant they were hit.

Yusuf didn’t hang around, he quickly moved back towards the window, looking for the Lakitu. It was hovering just out of range and he scowled towards it, watching as it swayed backwards and forwards but never quite close enough until, suddenly, a gust of wind picked up seemingly out of nowhere and blew the Lakitu straight towards the fortress.

 _Bang! Bang-bang!_ Yusuf leaned out the window and fired off three shots in quick succession. He watched with relieved satisfaction as at least one of the bullets connected and the creature dropped out of the sky and down into the nothingness surrounding the fortress.

Sighing with relief, Yusuf checked the other windows and the doorway, making sure that was the end of that. Satisfied, he checked on the others before moving back towards his spot against the wall. He placed the gun down beside him, wiping his sweaty palms against his trousers. The remains of the Spiney’s smoked slightly but their pungent smell seemed to have lost its intensity.

He was just getting ready to settle in for the long haul when the fortress started shuddering, the very foundations of the building beginning to rock and quake.

“Oh, what now?” Yusuf muttered, moved away from the wall and towards the others as loose stones and debris began to rain down from the ceiling.

There wasn’t much he could do if the world was beginning to collapse, he supposed, other than wait it out or give a premature kick and pray the others made it out with him.

It was an easy enough decision to make, with Yusuf knowing that he’d at least wake up should the dream collapse now. The thought of waking up alone, chained to his chair was not an appealing thought however and he just hoped that they would make it out alive, their job completed to Fischer’s satisfaction.

A chunk of the roof gave way then, smashing to the ground just inches from Arthur’s legs and Yusuf winced.

“Come on, come on,” he repeated, a mantra urging them to hurry up.

Eames was the first to wake and Yusuf sent up a prayer of thanks as the other man sat up, looked around the crumbling fortress and then turned a grin on Yusuf, seemingly unperturbed by the fact they were about to be crushed to death.

“Yusuf, my man, how are you?” he greeted, pulling the needle from his wrist as Cobb and Arthur woke and began to do the same.

“Just wonderful,” he replied with put-upon cheer. “I had my good friend the Lakitu to keep me company.” He gestured towards the small mounds of smoking gunk.

Eames laughed, “Looks like you did alright.”

“Did you do it?” Yusuf asked then. Eames nodded.

“They should be awake back up top.”

“We should get going ourselves,” Yusuf said, “this entire place is about to come down on top of us.”

“You realise once we’re awake we’ll still have to deal with whatever Fischer has in store for us?” Arthur commented.

“Not like we have much choice,” Eames muttered.

“I think he’ll keep his word,” Cobb said. The other turned to stare at him, surprised.

Cobb shrugged. “He was hiding out in Limbo, playing some kind of miniature version of these levels like it was an actual game. I’m not entirely sure we won, but he seemed to concede that we’d at least gotten that far.”

“You think he’ll let us go?” Arthur asked, eyebrows raised. “Just like that?”

“We did do what he asked us to,” Eames conceded, “We got back what was dear to us and everyone else survived too.”

The fortress gave a particularly violent lurch at that moment and the roof started falling in. A large chunk of stone crashed down into the space where the PASIV device lay, crushing it instantly.

“We don’t have time for this,” Cobb yelled then, “Yusuf, blow the charges! We’ll just have to deal with the repercussions when we wake up.”

Yusuf nodded, pulling the detonation device from his pocket.

“Ready?” he yelled.

As ready as they’d ever be, they all gave simultaneous nods of assent, and Yusuf blew the charges.


	6. Game Over

Arthur awoke with only the slightest of tells: a hitch in his breathing as he went from asleep to awake before falling back into the impression of sleep. He forced himself to keep his eyes closed and his breathing deep and regulated as he strained his ears for sound, for reassurances that it was safe to show he was awake. He heard movement to both his left and right; the creak of a chair, the ripping sound of tape against flesh, someone hissed, footsteps moving around, the sound of paper being shaken out.

He tried not to react when he felt someone touch at his hand, but a deep throated chuckle proved him unsuccessful. He recognised the sound of that laugh however and opened his eyes to find Eames standing beside his chair. He lowered himself beside Arthur legs and Arthur shifted, giving Eames some room.

“Knew you were awake,” Eames said, reaching for Arthur’s hand once more. He turned it over, exposing his pale wrist and the needle stuck deep inside. He frowned, seeing the mottled bruising already forming from the rough entry of the needle.

“You have this little half-frown you do when you’ve just woken up but don’t actually want to get up,” Eames smiled at him, running gentle fingers over his bruised wrist before gently peeling the tape free and sliding the needle out. He pressed his thumb over the small puncture wound left behind.

Arthur watched Eames, momentarily warmed by his ministrations. When Eames looked up, Arthur looked away, turning his eyes towards the others who were sitting up in their chairs and disconnecting themselves from the PASIV device. Saito was already on his feet, standing beside the low table and reading from a slip of paper.

There was no sign of Fischer or his hired help.

“Where’s—” Arthur started.

“Fischer?” Eames asked, “not here anyway,” he answered with a shrug.

Arthur frowned, carefully extracting his hand from Eames’ hold and pushing himself to his feet. Cobb looked up from where he sat, Ariadne half-bent over his wrist, he gave a curt nod which Arthur returned, before turning his attention back to whatever Ariadne was saying to him.

“Saito?” Arthur called, stepping up beside him.

“It seems that Mr Fischer has indeed kept his word,” Saito said by way of answer, gesturing towards the paper in his hand. His words carried easily around the room, drawing interest from the others.

“He congratulates us—” here Saito paused, adding wryly, “those of us who have made it out alive and intact— on the successful extraction of that which is most dear to us all.”

All eyes turned to Ariadne who half-smiled, awkward under the attention. “Um, yeah. Thanks for that, by the way.”

“Not that you needed saving, of course,” Eames offered, grinning at her before turning to the group at large. “She’d only managed to save herself by the time we got there. Had that overgrown dinosaur eating right out the palm of her hand.”

“He wasn’t so bad,” Ariadne admitted, “once we got past the whole kidnapping business of course.”

“If only we’d known sooner,” Eames lamented, “we could have left you to it and enjoyed the relatively drama-free environs of Level One until the sedative wore off on its own.”

Ariadne laughed, punching at Eames’ arm. “As if you’d have left me there!”

Eames grinned, slinging an arm around her shoulders. “As if we had a choice,” he muttered inclining his head towards Cobb who shifted as everyone turned to look at him now. He scowled at Eames.

“Well, thank you. _Everyone_ ,” Ariadne said, smiling brightly, her eyes lingering on Cobb.

“Does Fischer say anything else?” Yusuf asked turning his attention back to the note Saito still held.

“Yeah,” Ariadne added, “does he mention anything about the dream? About how he did it?”

Saito shook his head. “Nothing about how he managed it, no. He just reiterates his intentions behind doing this, and says that as far as he’s concerned everything is now even between us. He’s also left us two cars and the papers we’ll need to get back to where we were, before…” Saito tapered off, his mouth curling in distaste even without saying the word ‘ _kidnapped_ ’. He passed the letter over for Cobb to scan.

Ariadne frowned, “Shame. I’d have liked to have known…” she trailed off.

“Just be thankful we all got out of this alive,” Yusuf said in the face of her dejection.

She smiled, somewhat sheepishly and nodded.

“What- is that it?” Cobb muttered, frowning, his eyes still flickering over the letter. Fischer had also mentioned, though not in so many words, that he was far more experienced in dream sharing than they’d given him credit for. He also not-quite thanked them for the inception job they’d pulled on him. Cobb frowned a little deeper at that.

“Cobb…” Arthur started, his tone almost warning Cobb against saying anything else.

“What?” he asked absently, tearing his eyes from the page.

“Isn’t that enough?” Arthur pressed.

“No, I just meant…” he shook his head distractedly. “I’d suspected that once we woke up from the dream Fischer would honour his agreement,” he shared a look with Saito, remembering the game he’d played with Fischer down in Limbo. “I just didn’t expect him not to be here when we woke up. It’s all… well it’s all a bit too easy, isn’t it?”

“It’s about time something was,” Eames replied, staring down and flexing his hands a few times.

Arthur winced at Cobb’s words. “That’s exactly what you said when we woke up in the first level.”

“And on almost every other level come to think of it,” Eames added, looking up and shooting Cobb a suspicious look.

Cobb smirked. “Think you’re still dreaming, Eames?” he asked, only half-joking.

Eames laughed for a beat before his grin faltered and he shot a worried look towards the others, all of whom- aside from Saito- instinctively reached into their pockets, hands curling around their personal totems.

“Just, don’t jinx anything else, yeah?” Eames muttered to Cobb, his fist curled tightly around his own totem.

Yusuf quickly interjected. “I don’t know about the rest of you, but I’m more than glad that this is over. I also think we should start thinking about getting out of here.”

The ‘ _before Fischer changes his mind and comes back_ ’ was left unsaid.

“Yes,” Saito agreed, “you’ll understand if I don’t keep in touch for a while.”

Arthur inclined his head. Though Saito couldn’t exactly go into hiding, it was a subtle reminder that the rest of them should probably start thinking about laying low until they were completely certain this entire business had blown over.

Eames moved to his side then, his fingers catching against Arthur’s own in a loose hold and for once, despite the company of those around them, Arthur allowed the contact. He ignored Ariadne’s smile, the way Cobb and Saito deliberately didn’t notice it, as well as the clap Yusuf landed to Eames’ back as the rest of them began filing their way out of the warehouse.

Once the others were a few feet in front of them, Arthur turned to look at Eames.

“Where to, Mr Eames?” he asked, smiling faintly.

“Well we never did get to meet up in England,” Eames answered.

“Going back there wouldn’t be the smartest of moves,” Arthur said, suppressing an eye-roll because he knew Eames knew better.

Eames grinned. “No, but a quick pit-stop shouldn’t do any harm, right?”

Arthur raised one delicate eyebrow in reply to that. “What could you possibly need to stop off for that you haven’t already got stashed away in a handful of safe houses in countries across the world?”

“I’m sure I’ve got an old games console back home,” Eames said, his grin widening. “I quite fancy getting myself reacquainted with dear old Mario after this adventure.”

Arthur scowled at him, “That’s not in the least bit funny.”

Eames’ laugh however said that, yeah, it kind of was.

 _  
_

**fin.**   



End file.
